It's different for them, because they don't seem to notice the journey until they're already there.
–
There is no comfort in the way she wraps her arms around his shoulders now, no warmth and no feeling. He is empty. He is devoid of life.
But there is a dawn over him, a cold sunrise, a dew in the grass. This is new. He feels something lift, and maybe it's his diaphragm snapping as he shakes, but it seems to take a weight off of him. He feels like a cork has been released.
She can probably feel it too, in the palms that are pressed tightly against his spine, fingers splayed. Even. Steady. He is collapsed in the cage of her arms, so he grips the vial in his hand tighter and wants to shatter it and lick it up just the same.
She's making little shh-ing noises. He lets his arms find their way around her waist as he cries, wicked breaths that heave his chest and knock him into her. She is ever strong, holding him up as he is weak.
He lets her feel his vulnerability, and in return, she lets him see into her.
And he does.
–
Christina has a way about her, one that angers him and relaxes him at the same time. He's never yelled at anyone with his heartbeat quiet, but when they're done bickering and he sees the ghost of a smile on the side of her mouth as she turns away, he smiles too.
Her demands piss him off because who does she think she is? She's two years younger than him. She's two years more immature. She's two years weaker. The two years between them bother him, and one day when he yells at her to grow up she snaps.
"I'm not any younger than you than she was."
It hits him square in the chest and he sits down, on the gate surrounding the ferris wheel he once climbed. They look at each other for a moment.
"I'm not going to apologize," she declares, stepping closer to him so that his knees touch her thighs. "It hurts me too, you know. But you need to stop flinching, Tobias, and start smiling. She was a gift to you. You better remember her as that, not as some precious thing you lost. This isn't about you. Don't be so fucking selfish."
Honesty, he thinks, is painful. He doesn't understand why the Dauntless were considered so brave when there were Candor, people who speak their minds no matter what, who own up to their thoughts, who look people right in the eye as Christina is doing and set their jaws and waits for the unpredictable human reaction.
His heart twitches at the scowl on her forehead. As he leans back into his heels and pushes away from the gate, she takes his hand with both of hers and they walk off the pier in silence.
–
It takes Christina years to get it right. Until she's twenty-three and the only times they have to talk are rushed and they only times they meet are in small bakeries around town. She picks through her bag and throws the paper at him as she clutches his shoulders in a tight hug. He barely has time to respond to either.
He opens the piece of paper and his breath catches. He stares at it.
She touches the paper gingerly, tracing the lines. "It's been in my mind for a while, and, uh, I finally got it on paper, I guess."
"Christina, it's -" and then he can't say much else with the huge lump in his throat.
"Yeah." She clears her throat and traces the outline on the paper with her middle finger. "I was thinking of getting it, y'know, here." She points to a spot on the right of her sternum and he catches her hand as she takes it away.
"I will too," he says, and as they walk hand in hand through the New Chicago streets, the birds on the paper seems to take flight and soar around them in the air, creating a breeze that only two people who are moving on can feel.
–
They're in his apartment drunk, and he's sitting on his couch with his knees all the way apart so he can stretch his hamstrings, which are sore from all the running he'd been doing lately. Christina is in the kitchen, making herself another drink, giggling at every noise.
She drops down next to him, the drink sloshing in the cup in her hand. He takes it from her and sips a long, cool waterfall into his throat. It leaves a burning aftertaste. He coughs.
Christina is all legs, which she has no way of folding up anywhere because even though she is one of the physically strongest women he knows, she is stiff as a stick. She straightens her legs with her heels on the floor a couple feet in front of the couch, her dark skin contrasting with his gray carpet.
"Saw your -" she hiccups, "dad, today."
He nods at her and his eyes droop sleepily. "I did too."
She hiccups again in the quiet of his apartment. He thinks of falling asleep like this – head back on the couch, in his work clothes, legs all the way apart – but he knows for a fact he'll be sore in the morning. He sits up, keeping his legs stretching and looks at her.
Christina is pretty, in a very feminine way, unlike how she used to be, with her sharp, stern features. She's not curvy-feminine, but long-and-rounded-feminine, no sharp edges. Her eyelashes are long and dark and full. Everything is long and dark about her, besides her hair, which she chops under her chin and angles up to the nape of her neck and bleached at the tips. Long in the front, short in the back. He likes the way it frames her face now.
He's staring at her, but his vision is a bit fuzzy and his eyes feel too heavy to move away, so he drops his chin to his chest and continues looking at her. She notices.
"Wha -" hic. She takes another sip and makes a face, which makes her cheekbones pop out. He stares. "What, Four?"
He can't move any part of him. Not his mouth, to answer her. Not his eyes, to look away. Not his hands, to help himself up and off the damned couch where he can't stop feeling her presence.
"Four? You in -" she hiccups again, and slumps back onto the couch. She puts her drink down on the floor in front of her, between her feet.
Her head is on the back of the couch, neck bent, eyes closed.
Somewhere in the back of his head, a gear breathes and he finds the will to move.
But instead of moving away from her, he's right there – on her mouth, his hands on the couch on either side of her hips.
She parts her mouth but doesn't kiss him back. He moves away.
"Sorry," he lies.
She looks at him with tired eyes, and there's no surprise anywhere on her features. "I'm so fucking drunk, Four. Can we just sleep now?"
He puts his head back and falls asleep in the same position as her.
–
He likes being with Christina.
She's the second woman he'd ever been with, except she comments freely on how rusty he is. His touches are clumsy and sometimes too soft, sometimes just ghosts on her skin. His rhythm is off beat and means that Christina is usually the one to take the lead, which he doesn't complain about.
Sometimes he feels emasculated, but then Christina pulls herself up or twists her hips on top of him and he thinks fuck that because this is probably the best thing he'll ever feel After.
His life is sorted into a before and an after. Before Tris's death. After Tris's death. He tries not to compare them.
He doesn't always like talking about it with Christina, though, which always leaves them arguing. If there's one thing Christina needs to survive it's honesty and open hearts. He feels like a traitor whenever he acknowledges them, but he can't seem to stop what they have. Not now, that they're learning each other. Not now, that he has someone again that makes him feel closer to ¾.
He knows he'll never be 1 again, but ¾ is pretty damn close.
–
When he was 18, he promised himself that most of his tattoos will be hidden under his shirt, and he wouldn't become more ink than tan, more detailed than plain.
When he was 30, he promised himself one more tattoo, and then he was done.
The amount of needles that pierced his skin in his life was infinite and everlasting, so getting this tattoo didn't bother him as much as his first one's had. He'd accumulated an entire layer of skin covered in green. Johanna gave him looks when he rolled up his formal shirt sleeves and everyone in the meeting room focused their eyes on the ink all over his body.
This one he got right behind his ear. The skin was sensitive but tough over bone, so it wasn't all that different from his wrist.
When he gets home that night, he hears Christina's padding feet along the tile floor in the bathroom. He sheds his clothes onto the bed and steps into the shower with her.
She rubs her soapy palms against his short hair, working her way behind his head and ears. He leans into her touch, eyes closing. She stops at the bandage.
"Something happen?"
"Got another tattoo."
He rests his head against her shoulder as her fingers massage the back of his neck. His hands somehow work themselves around her back and then under her ass, pulling her up against him and walking her into the shower wall.
"Tobias," she whines against the cold stone, but she let him kiss her neck and sighs when he finally captures her mouth in his.
–
There's something in wearing a hospital gown and lying with needles hooked into the inside of his arm that makes him smile.
Christina smacks his leg, which makes him grin even wider. "What's so fucking funny, Four? You almost died!"
He snorts, then winces, and then composes himself again. His hand finds hers atop the blankets. "I'm fine, it's just a couple ribs and my arm and leg, Christina. I've had much worse."
And he had. They certainly haven't forgotten, but every minor injury is a painful reminder of The Worse. The wrinkles in Christina's forehead are proof.
"Just don't scare me like that," she says, and squeezes his hand so tight he feels it pull in his chest.
"Believe me, I didn't purposefully crash into a truck."
She gives him a small smile but looks away, and he knows she's hesitant to agree completely. His heart begins to beat faster, and his exhale is so sharp that it leaves his body painfully.
"What, you don't believe me now? You think I'm suicidal?"
She gives him a front view of her wide eyes and looks away again. "I'm just thinking that you haven't been acting like yourself lately, Tobias. I don't know if that's why you got in this accident but - "
He pulls his hand out from under hers. And she stops talking at the movement. She stands up. He looks away.
He sees her feet come around to the other side of the bed from where his head is hanging off the pillow.
"It was an accident."
"Okay."
"We just got to the bureau." She still has that wide-eyed look and he coughs. "I mean, fifteen years ago. Yesterday. We just got to the bureau. And then yesterday, I saw him, sitting there in that truck and smiling and he had a fucking gun in his lap and I just lost it, Christina. I couldn't see straight, but I swear it was an accident. I wouldn't try to kill him on purpose, I promise."
She pulls his free hand across his body and kisses it, keeping her head low. He could see her bangs stick to the corners of her eyes.
"I'm sorry you had to see him."
He shrugs, flinches, moves deeper into the blankets.
"I'm sorry he lived." She nods at him and stands up again.
"Me too."
She walks to the door and looks back at him, her dark eyes smiling. There's little wrinkles at the sides. His chest aches from something not-injury related. "See you later, Tobias."
"I love you," he blurts out after her retreating figure. She looks back at him full-on smiles at him.
There are no surprises between them. And even though he just almost killed someone and broke a couple of ribs and an arm and a leg and he's pretty sure his face is so mangled he's unrecognizable, he's also sure that Christina can see through him enough to kind of sort of love him too.
–
When they finally get there, it feels like home. Neither of them leave.