selfishorbrave | [Teleios] test drive

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[Teleios] test drive

She stands on top of the temple roof and gazes over the rest of the city. The building itself is not very tall; three stories pales in comparison to other heights she's found herself at. But on top of the hill, the view is good enough to see her new location and scout out places of interest. She knows that's not what prompted the climb though. That had been because of restlessness. Because if she sits still too long, the memories start to creep in.

Her mother being shot.

Killing Will.

Her father's body lying among countless others. Tris having no choice but to leave it there.

It's bad enough that the memories come to her at night. It's bad enough that she keeps them all from Tobias. She hasn't been able to figure out what to say to him yet. Her last memories of home had been winding up among the factionless. Caleb's still back there. He's the only family she has left and it makes her think that she needs to fight harder to leave Teleios. But she hasn't. Doesn't.

Going back means seeing them. Possibly seeing Christina if she survived the simulation. Being thrust in the middle of a war again. She's Dauntless. She should be braver than this. She has to be. Someone needs to do something back home. Someone needs to go to Candor and make them and the Dauntless currently staying there see reason about the Erudite plans and convince them to help. To fight.

But here, she doesn't even have to look at a gun. Instead, she gets to stand on the edge of a building and look down at a factionless world where people seem to know, regardless, where they belong.

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It doesn't take long to find Tris. Sure, she's well hidden but Four knows her. He knows that she goes up high when she wants to think, when she wants to be alone and he should probably respect her desire to be alone, but since when does Four know how to actually boyfriend? Since never is the correct answer here, so he grits his teeth, climbs the stairs and steps out onto the roof. It's not so high but for someone afraid of heights, it's high enough. He shows his fear in little ways: back straightening, shoulders squaring, brows knitting into a concerned sort of scowl (because scowl is his default).

He approaches Tris from behind, moving up to touch the small of her back. "Decide to save climbing the tower for another day?" he says in greeting, fingertips resting ever so slightly at her back.

It's not like she's entirely ignoring him. She spends more time in Tobias' company than among anyone else she's thus far met. But sometimes, it's just easier to be alone. And that includes being away from him. It doesn't surprise her though that he doesn't seem to get that. Nor does it surprise her when he comes up behind her and places his hand on her back. Dauntless conditioning has given her that much.

But like always, his touch seems to sear through her tee to her skin. It makes her want to shiver and touch him in return even as they stand in full sight of anyone who might be watching the temple, Abnegation upbringing be damned.

She does, at least, take a step away from the edge for his sake and turns to look at him with a scowl of her own. "Is that what it'll take to be alone?"

(Besides, the tower - while not one from the urban landscape she grew up in - is too reminiscent of home. She doesn't want that. Not right now.)

And he appreciates that she spends time in his company. He'd rather her spend time in his company than in anyone else's. He'd only spent a few months in Teleios without Tris, but it was enough to realize that he didn't want to spend any more time away from her. No, things weren't perfect between them and he knew she wasn't talking to him, but even if she spend all of her time mad at him, he'd rather have her here than not at all.

He appreciates that. He'll stand on the edge for her if necessary, but he won't like it. At her snide comment, his hand falls away from her back and he crosses his arms over his chest. It's the only indication he gives that her barb stung. "Or you could say 'I'd like to be alone'."

She might not be as good as a Candor at reading the tells people have, but she knows Tobias. She also knows that she had meant the words to hurt him a little. But her face softens a little in response to his now defensive posture. It's the closest she'll get to an apology at the moment. She really had come here to be alone and she barely had enough time to think about anything before he had found her.

"You wouldn't listen to that," Tris points out with a little bit of a wry grin. "You think alone involves background hovering."

She's not bad at it though and she does know him better than anyone else. He wouldn't be surprised that Tris had meant the words to hurt him. Neither one of them are much good at the niceties of things. This is what they do to each other.

He quirks an eyebrow up at Tris' words and smirks. "You mean it isn't?"

She rolls her eyes at the response. Maybe he actually means that. It'd explain a lot about the way he's been acting lately. He hasn't exactly been forthcoming about his time in Teleios without her. Not that she's one to talk. Not with everything she's still keeping from him.

Shooting Will. Meeting his mother. Nothing too important, really.

"What do you think?"

He only about half ~~okay 3/4s~~ means it. He's worried about Tris. He doesn't want to leave her alone, doesn't want to give her too much time to think. He's afraid she'll do something stupid. Tris might not have much family left, but Four doesn't have much either. He's got her and he'd like to keep her this time.

He doesn't know what to tell her. He doesn't want to tell her that she was here before, that her house is sitting outside the temple. He doesn't want to do her any further damage so he says nothing until she asks.

He's going to ignore the obvious answer to that question, the one that makes him admit hovering isn't the same as being alone regardless of how in the background he is. "I'm glad you're here. That's what I think."

"Thanks."

Secrets upon secrets. It seems to be a natural thing for both of them. Maybe it's a characteristic of being Abnegation. Selflessness might be a form of bravery, but can it also lead to secrecy? The desire to help the people you care about by protecting them from information that might be too painful to handle. Selfish and selfless, all at the same time.

At least, that'd be the case for Tobias. In Tris' opinion, her own secrets are out of pride. She doesn't want to see him look at her any different. She doesn't want to be hurt anymore than she's already been.

"Even if I'm still not sure how the hell I got here."

Four has had a couple more years to figure out who he is, what he is. He might tell lies and keep secrets but he's brutally honest with himself, about himself. It's part of the reason for the tattoos on his back, tattoos that could get him killed back in his world. They remind him of what he is, who he is and who he wants to be. Tris will find herself in time. She'll become more certain of herself, of his love for her. She has to be patient with herself, which is the hardest person to be patient with and patience isn't one of Tris' strong suites anyway.

It's probably obvious that one of Four's flaws is arrogance. He thinks he knows what's best for Tris rather than telling her everything and letting her cope with it. He knows she's strong. He knows she will cope, but he doesn't want to give her too much to deal with when she's still adjusting to so much here.

Oh Tris. He's killed people before. Never his best friend, true, but he's killed and he's hurt and he would never, ever look at her differently. He would be glad she'd shot, glad she'd saved her own life because as much as he might have liked Will, he's infinitely more interested in keeping Tris alive.

"For weeks, maybe even longer, after I'd arrived I'd been certain it was an advanced simulation."

"It's not."

She doesn't think that the Factionless have access to the same serums that the Erudite have. But she's also doesn't trust them. There could have been something slipped into the food just like Amnity did with their bread. It's worth consideration even if it doesn't seem all that likely. She remembers Tobias acting under Jeanine Matthew's revised serum, how hard it had been to get him to break through even as a Divergent.

But if this is a simulation, it's too peaceful. She sees Tobias as Tobias, not as an enemy. She has yet to face anything more terrifying than her own fear of intimacy with Tobias. And if she's in his simulation, there's been no sign of Marcus. She doesn't doubt for a moment that he'd be here if it was.

"Yeah. I've figured that out by now," he snarks. It's not unkind the way it would be if anyone else were to say it, but it's not overly coddle-y or saccharine sweet. It's not even fond, not to anyone that isn't Tris, that doesn't understand where Four and Tris are coming from.

But Four hasn't met the factionless, not yet. Not here. The last thing he remembers about home is being on the train with Tris, traveling out toward Amity. It'd be nice to say that one day they can sit down and talk about what Tris had experienced and what Four hasn't yet. However, they're not going to talk about something so complex. They both know that.

It's not always peaceful, but it's mostly peaceful and yes, that doesn't figure with the simulations. She's right about Marcus as well; if this were one of Four's simulations Marcus would be there.

"You're lucky you arrived when you did. We were all living in the temple before this."

As he hasn't yet shown her to her parents' Abnegation house, she's still living in the temple. Which she doesn't mind so much. Sharing a room with three other strangers reminds her a little bit of the room she shared with the other Transfers. The sound of others breathing and snoring make her feel a little more at ease. Like she can close her eyes at night and almost pretend the last couple of weeks haven't happened.

So that comment of his definitely gets a look. "Some of us are still living here."

Right. He hesitates, shifting his weight a bit. He's gotten lax here, let his guard down a little and has forgotten how to stay on his toes verbally with Tris. He hates sharing a room. He's always hated sharing a room. It makes him too exposed, too vulnerable. Tobias likes his privacy. He bites the tip of his tongue a second, debating on whether he should tell her or not.

"You don't have to. If you don't want to."

That's an opening to telling her, isn't it?

Her eyebrows raise at that response. It's not the one that she expects to hear, especially the way he speaks and makes it seem like common knowledge all along. Sure, she hasn't exactly asked him where he's been living. She just assumed that he had been assigned a room in the temple as well.

Or, worse, opted to camp outside the door of her room ever since her arrival. She wouldn't put it past him.

"I don't have any other option right now."

If he's hiding something from her, she is not going to be happy. Contradictions or not.

Well, he's had several months to get used to the idea of her Abnegation house being here, even before spring came and they were allowed out of the temple. He'd planned on moving there even before she showed; he had moved in for a few weeks. He'd cleaned, de-winterized the house and just begun to settle in because it was so much like the good parts of home and Tris that it was easy to settle in then she'd shown up. He'd always intended on moving out, on telling her about the house and never expecting her to let him live there. It's just that he wasn't (still isn't) sure how to tell her that her house is here given when she's coming from.

Well he did sleep on the floor next to her bed when she was here before because he didn't like her room mates so no, it's not above him.

"Yes, you do." He exhales. "Your parents' house is here. It's been here for months and before the winter I wasn't living in it. I couldn't, but after winter...I meant to just clean it up, de-winterize it, but it's more home than the temple. I'll move out and let you have it. It's rightfully yours anyway."

Creepy or sweet that he's been sleeping in her room? His choices were her parents (he wouldn't ever be comfortable there) or Caleb's room. He'd chosen hers because it was a way to be closer to her.

She hears the words but she's not certain she's hearing them correctly. Her parents' house is here. Her home from Abnegation. It's here and for whatever stupid reason, Tobias didn't think to mention it. Does he know how important that places is to her? It's the only thing she has left of her parents and he just forgot to mention it to her? That he's been living there doesn't even register.

What the hell had he been thinking?

Her eyes narrow and she glowers at him for all of a second before she tries to punch him in the solar plexus. When she speaks, her voice comes out loud and shrill and angry. "And you didn't think of telling me that?"

Edited 2015-03-08 17:36 (UTC)

He knows, but he also knows that her parents death is raw and this place is overwhelming. He had been giving her some time to get settled. At least that had been his thought process. The her that had been there before hadn't wanted to live there, hadn't even wanted to go inside because it was all too raw. He didn't want to put her through that again.

He'd been trying to protect her. Of course.

Okay, he deserves that and he should have been expecting it. Instead, she catches him off guard and he loses his wind for a second. He does reach out and grab her wrist, fingers encircling it either to keep her from hitting him again or to keep her moving away from him or perhaps just to ground himself. She's here. He still expects her to dissolve into a simulation sometimes. It gives him a chance to get his words together.

"You haven't been here that long and I didn't want to overwhelm you. I wasn't sure if it would make it harder or easier to be here." He's got a complicated relationship with his abnegation house after all.

Yes, the death of her parents still haunt her. So does Will's. Maybe his even more so. Her parents had died for her and while she'll never, ever forget that and she'll do everything in her power to make sure she makes them proud, she had been the one to shoot Will. She could have tried to disarm him, she could have made sure her shot had been nonfatal. She's Dauntless; she's a good enough aim. Instead, she had killed him.

She had killed him. There's a reason she still can't pick up a gun.

Tobias doesn't understand. He doesn't get that while the deaths are still raw, it's still her parents' home. Even if she doesn't step foot in there, she has a right to know. She has a right to make her own choices. He has to stop protecting her.

And all of this makes it extremely satisfying when Tobias looses his breath for a second. She starts to smirk but falls short as soon as his hand captures her wrist. Then she just scowls.

"So?" She attempts to pull her hand away and if that doesn't work, she'll stomp down hard with her heel right above the arch of her foot. "Don't you think that's my decision to make?"

Tobias knows what it's like to kill someone. He knows what it's like to choose death over disabling. He understands. After all, his power to murder someone is one of his fears. He doesn't know if he can make her feel better about it, but he does wish she'd talk to him about it.

And he doesn't care if she ever picks up a gun again as long as she's not rushing headlong into dangerous situations. If she's going to need one, he needs her to be able to use one.

Yes. It would. Her scowl beckons a hint of a smirk from him. "Pardon me for trying to make life a little easier on the girl I love." He is so used to holding onto information that actually giving it away seems awkward and unnatural. He doesn't let go of her wrist which means...

Yeah.

Well, that works and he does let go of her wrist. His instinct is to wrap her up in his arms, feet off the ground. Instead he takes a step back, every muscle in his body tense with not retaliating. The only thing stopping him is that she is still too close to the edge for his liking.

"Feel better now?" he asks through gritted teeth.

That's the thing. She doesn't need Tobias to protect her. She doesn't need anyone to protect her. Divergence aside, she's also Dauntless. And that means that she needs to be able to take care of herself. It doesn't matter that there's some small voice in her mind that reminds her how she's still keeping secrets from him. Or that, to most girls, they'd think it sweet that their boyfriend is trying to protect them.

She's not most girls. He's not most boyfriends.

Which means she's grinning widely when he lets go of her wrist. She wraps her palm over the section he had grasped. She rubs at the spot a little, not because he had hurt her (which he hadn't) but because the feel of his grip still lingers. They were both raised Abnegation. Touches mean something.

"No," she replies, purpose taking a backward step closer to the edge of the temple. "No, Tobias. You need to stop sheltering me."

Tobias thinks that she needs to be protected from herself. She's reckless with her life and he's afraid he's going to lose her because of it. Part of the reason he wants to protect her is because he does think she's keeping secrets from him, or that she's not handling the things that have happened to her well. He wants to protect her because he loves her, because he can't stand to lose her. He's not trying to piss her off or push her way; he's trying to hold onto her.

No. This much is entirely true. They'll never be most people.

Touch always means something. He touches no one else casually and he probably won't ever be able to.

That flicker of something in his eyes, that's fear because she's too close to the edge for his liking, but he doesn't move toward her or reach out to grab her. It's obvious he wants to, but he doesn't. Not yet. "Perhaps I'll stop trying to shelter you when you start talking to me and stop being so reckless with your life. You're important to me, Tris. Do you know how long I've been here without you? 4 months, three and a half weeks and about eight hours." ~~because he would know this information~~. The muscles in his neck are corded, tense. There's emotion and need etched into every line of his body, the expression on his face and thick in his eyes. "I don't want to lose you." Again is implied.

Far softer than anything else he's said thus far: "I need you."

She's only one person. In the grand scheme of things, her life really doesn't mean much at all. And she's more than willing to risk it if it's for the greater good. That's where she makes an excellent member of the Abnegation faction. But at the same time, it's where she fails. She can't see past her own narrow scope of her role in the world to realize that maybe the more selfless thing to do would be to care about her own mortality a little bit more. For Tobias' sake.

For now, though, she's still that girl who felt too selfish to fit in with the rest of Abnegation. And it's why she stays at the edge despite that look of fear in Tobias' eyes. She knows he wants her to step away but she stays there, anyway.

"You kept track." But the words don't come out nearly as incredulously as she'd like. His last three words completely silence any lingering words of anger. The corner of her lips quirk upward in the starts of a grin, brief but full of the tenderness those words evoke. She steps away from the ledge and towards him, then reaches out to place her hand on his cheek. Softly, "I'm here now."

She's only one person, but that doesn't keep her from being one person's world. Later in both their futures, Tobias will try to explain to her that sacrifice isn't always selfless. Sometimes being selfless is doing the thing that is painful, the thing that you most don't want to do. He would appreciate it very much if she stuck around for a little while, until they're both far too old to be in Dauntless.

He can't help put be afraid of her on the edge. Yes, he's projecting his fear onto her when he knows she's not afraid of heights, but he can't help it. Yes. He wants her to step away and it is an act of willpower not to reach out and grab her, pull her closer.

"I couldn't help but keep track," he confesses. He'd hated every single one of those days. Even when her lips quirk upward he's not certain what she's thinking, not certain whether what he's said is okay or not until she steps toward him, until her hand is against his cheek. He closes his eyes and wraps his arms around her waist.

"You could be a very realistic simulation," he tells her with the ghost of a grin on his face. "I'd say a dream, but my dreams have never been this good."

She doesn't take her eyes off his face as he wraps his arms around her. She can't. For all he exudes Dauntless toughness and hides behind the reputation he's built as Four, she knows there's much more to Tobias than people realize. He can be soft when he wants. Tender. Loving. Even vulnerable. He had taken her into his fear landscape and let her see who he really is. She hasn't thought of him as Four since that night. He's Tobias. He's her Tobias even if she has yet to tell him she loves him, too.

Her hand slips down from his cheek to the nape of his neck and she uses it as leverage to move his face down toward hers as she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him. She smiles as their lips meet. Tris'll never get tired of kissing him. Never.

It's a quick kiss though and as suddenly as she kisses him, she pulls away enough to rest her forehead against his. "You're Divergent," she reminds him. "And if someone's using Jeanine's stronger serum, I probably wouldn't be doing this."

She's the only one that sees the soft sides of him. In fact, Tobias hadn't known he had soft sides until he'd met Tris. He thought Marcus had obliterated all of those years ago. It'd only seemed fair. He'd been inside her head so many times, seen her vulnerable, seen her biggest fears. If they were going to have any sort of relationship (and by that time he wanted one) they needed to be on equal ground. She needed to know him the way he knew her. As far as first dates had gone, it was fairly risky, but he didn't regret it. Not then and not now. As far as he's concerned, he's belonged to her since the night Al died. He'd known then that there was no turning back for him, not with her. He belonged to her and if he was very lucky, she'd let him.

It turns out, he's very lucky.

And he's incredibly aware of that luck as her hand moves to the nape of his neck. His hair is still Abnegation short because at his core, that's who he is and her fingers prickle-tickle-thrill against his skin. He feels more than sees the smile against his lips and the kiss is far too fleeting (they all are) but he won't ever complain about her kissing him.

The corner of his mouth quirks up at her words. "You've got a point. That kiss would be much longer and we probably wouldn't be standing on a rooftop." Though he's having a hard time remembering the rooftop part.

Or, she thinks, if it had been that simulation Jeanine had used on him in the Abnegation headquarters, he wouldn't be thinking about a longer kiss. He'd think she was the enemy again and he'd be doing his best to kill her rather than kiss her. She thinks that she likes his version of a simulation better. No. There's no doubt. She definitely likes his version a lot better.

Suddenly, she doesn't want to think about serums or simulations anymore. Even joking about it starts to trigger that guilt that brought her up to the to roof to begin with. She had shot Will because he had been under a simulation and would've killed her. She hadn't thought twice about it. Now it's all she can think about even held safe in Tobias' arms.

She slips out of his arms without another word and starts to walk back towards the edge, keeping her back to him so he can't see the conflicting emotions on her face.

Her simulation is more likely, but Four has been looking at Teleios as a simulation designed to make him want to stay here as opposed to a simulation designed to make him want to kill the person he loves the most. He likes his version of the simulation better as well, but he'd rather that this wasn't a simulation. He's spent a long time not doing well in Teleios, but with Tris here he's beginning to see that they could both have a life and for the first time since he arrived here, he thinks he might want that life.

Tobias hates heights. They are the least of his fears, but they still terrify him. For Tris, he's braved heights before and he will again. He watches her for a moment, brow furrowed then steps up behind her, one arm going around her waist. He bows his head just a bit.

"Did I say something wrong?" He sounds thoroughly confused because he is confused. Flirting, dating and relationships are new to Tobias and doing it all in a situation that isn't life or death is new as well.

She doesn't stop him from wrapping his arm around her waist. She wants to, though. Tris had stepped away from him for a reason. It's because she had come here initially to be alone and the direction her thoughts had just taken reminded her of that. His arm around her waist reminds her that she isn't alone and of all the secrets she's still keeping from him. He had come clean about her parents' house being here. Why can't she do the same?

She really isn't as brave as she wants to be.

His question stings about as much as the nick of a knife would and it's enough to make her finally pull away. She shakes her head in response as she folds her arms up against her chest. "I just want to be alone."

Tobias tries to know when to push her and when to back off. His first instinct is always to push her until she breaks because beautiful things happen when Tris' breaks. He likes watching the way she wakes up, the way she seems so alive when she breaks. He knows that when Tris breaks, he can finally get through to her; she'll finally listen and that's when she's vulnerable to changing, to believing. One of these days he will have to push her until she breaks about Will. He will have to prod and push and pry until she breaks wide open.

However

Today isn't that day. He lets her pull away and nods. He's not happy about being pushed away, but she's dealing with a lot: this place, the house, what happened back home, so he will give her this. Today.

"I'll be in the rec center down the street when you decide you don't want to be alone anymore."

The truth is, he'll probably be running through his fear landscape then he'll go use punching bags, throwing knives, weights and exercise to cope with the fallout from the fear landscape. He's going to go be obsessive, Tris. Don't leave him alone for too long. He doesn't do nearly as well as he wants everyone to think he does.

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[Teleios] test drive

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