Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Divergent. FOURTRIS FLUFF.
Christina doesn't say anything when we get back. I'm stiff-backed. He is walking in front of me. When he turns, he keeps his eyes trained on the wall opposite him.
Christina bumps me with her arm. I give her the slightest nod of my head, wanting her to calm down before she goes crazy.
She nods and the next hour passes before another pair comes along and we're sent back into the dark barracks for our few hours of sleep.
I slip into bed and bury myself into my pillow and blankets, reliving everything in my mind. I feel like I should be blushing, but there's no blush. I gently touch my lips with two of my fingers. I can practically feel him against me, how he could turn my face warm with a single touch, how he tasted nice.
I miss the feeling I had when he was with me. It's fading with him not actually being there. I want it back. Because along with that feeling, I like him, and I wish there wasn't such rules around here.
The next morning at breakfast, while we're away from the line as quickly as we can. we walk to our usual breakfast table. I can barely move, except for an energy inside of me that I can't explain. That fills me and suddenly makes me smile, or frown.
Christina takes her seat and I take mine and she just stares at me for a moment. She is hungry for details, that's for certain.
I look around. The sergeants are nowhere to be seen. Our usual occupants to this table are in line still. Christina practically knows already. Might as well indulge her.
I turn back to her, take a deep breath. My muscles feel tense. My voice speaks out, cracked and stiff and disjointed, "We . . . we went down a hall and we talked."
"And that's all that happened?" Christina says gently, with a teasing look on her face.
I look down, a quirky smile coming onto my face. It feels out of place but like it also belongs.
"He kissed you, didn't he?" Christina leans in, her voice barely above a whisper, excited.
I nod. She lets out a sigh, of relief, probably, and leans back, her hands on the bench, her face lit up with her bright white smile.
"And what have you to say about this?" she says in a teasing little voice.
A smile comes onto my face. "I really like it." I straighten. Sound serious. "You're the only one who can know. If someone else knew, another recruit, they'd think he'd show favoritism to me and I'd never be able to do anything normally. Or Eric. He can't know."
"For that exact reason," Christina says, nodding.
"None of the boys or Marlene or Lynn. Just the three of us," I say seriously.
She nods, looks delighted. It must be nice for her to be in on such a secret that one word can slip and ruin everything. My military life. My regular life.
She gives me a little kick to the knee under the table, so no one can see.
"Congratulations, Miss Taken," she says.
I smile and look at the ground.
When my eyes look up, they find Tobias's in the crowd. They share a look, one that's forever imbedded into my brain, and he gives me the slightest of smiles before he turns back to Eric, who wants his attention.
A week passes. It speeds by, something that hasn't happened in all of my training here. That's what happens when you're so busy time flies.
We're introduced to new things in our training. Besides our classes and the demanding obstacle courses that I'm slowly working on, there's the hand grenades to get to know. The machine guns. The heavy metal weapons. The ones that sink in my hands, the ones that I have to brace to hold. But they almost are lighter than they used to be. My arms show a case that says I might have muscles. Christina is always pointing this out, saying, "Hey, boys like strong girls."
Let's hope so. Tobias seems to, though, like me as I am. He always is giving me glances, his eyes meeting mine and his smile only for me. That's when he smiles. Just with me. The rest of the time he is solidly dark, cool, stony.
We find time in empty corridors, having stolen kisses, warm hugs. Whispers. I'm nervous, from never having been with a boy before, never mind having been in a secret relationship with a military drill sergeant. I'm more alert to people coming to find us, though Christina knows her job. She is a lookout, distracting any sergeants that come to our barracks wondering where we are.
She's like a sister in that way. And for her, I'm thankful.
I catch myself looking at Tobias a lot more. Even when he isn't looking at me, I watch him, feel myself smile when I see him. Will and Al think I'm acting weird, strange. But I don't care. Can't help that he commands my attention all the time.
He's nice, that's for certain. He's not as jerky as he can be perceived. He is actually really quiet, his voice always strong but occasionally questioning, like he's afraid of my answer to things. But always, when he holds me to him, I feel safe. So safe in his arms. Safe and also scared. Not of him but of his touches, of he is able to make me feel like he is the thing I need. Like I can't go a day without seeing him. It's scary; it makes my heart palpitate, like I'm scared of kissing him, but I also want to kiss him. I'm torn every time I kiss him.
Sometimes I try kissing him harder, try to see if I can overwhelm the feeling of panicking; but it still is there, as relevant as ever.
It's week four. Technically. But I feel like I've been here for more than a month. I feel that when mail call comes and Lauren passes me two letters from home. I haven't gotten any from home since the first one. I look at them and feel like I'm going to cry.
There's no talk for me tonight. No advice. Tobias is the one always delivering me 'advice.' But Eric watches us, thinking that either I'm a really weak recruit that shouldn't carry on like I should, or that Tobias likes me. To throw him off, I only talk to him like this twice a week. I like forward to them each time, but tonight is one, and he approaches me.
He notices the letters, sees the return addressee has the same last name as I do. He clears his throat and whispers so his lips barely move, "Skip tonight. Read those," and he walks away.
I feel grateful as I hug them to my chest and hurry back after Christina to our quarters.
She doesn't have any letters, so she looks over the first after I've read it and am reading the second one. I put my hand to my mouth, but no tears come to my eyes.
The first is from my mother. Calm, touching, soft, wondering, telling of how life is for her and dad at the moment. How they're doing community service and volunteering and how Dad's job is going. How she is happy that I'm doing well. How she hopes that I'm not having too much of a bad time.
The second one is a surprise. One from Caleb. He's in college, a couple years older than me, and Dad is far more proud of his choice to do that. Not so appreciative toward my choice.
He writes about his college, his classes, his classmates, a professor he considers himself a prodigy under, someone named Jeanine. He writes about himself for the whole page and I have to turn it over before I get to a part of him talking to me and not writing an autobiography.
'Still, college is the challenge I expected it to be. I guess you know what I mean by a challenge, Beatrice: I hear the army is very tough, with testing your endurance, strength and stamina. You're learning to survive.
'I'll see you, then, at your graduation ceremony. My first year will be over in a few weeks. Isn't that great? Wish me luck on the finals!
'Your brother, Caleb.'
I look up from the letter, feeling a sudden burning rage. Confusion fills me as I smack the letter down beside me, making Christina look up from my other one.
"What'd he do?" Christina wonders.
"Lists his life and then barely bothers to address who he's writing to," I say.
She reads the letter, frowns at the end.
"Brothers, huh?" she says as she puts it down.
She wouldn't know. All she has is a sister.
But I just nod, just to acknowledge her.
I lie on my bed that night, not getting to go on a watch. The shifts, will decreasing my amount of sleep, make me happy. It's the only time I get to spend time with Tobias. Stolen time.
The sheets feel like nothing against me. I play with a bit of my hair as I mutter no words to myself, feeling myself grow angrier with Caleb. He doesn't have to be like that. Act like he's a know-it-all and he's more important than I am.
He didn't use to be like this. He was always so calm, so selfless that it put me to shame. But as his college acceptance letters came in the mail and our parents started patting him on the back, giving him proud smiles, and he took it to heart. Or maybe he was always a bit of a scholar. He just didn't let us know until later.
I went with my parents to drop him off at college. He had been so wrapped up in returning to his nerd friends that he had only given me an absentminded kiss on the forehead before turning away. It hurt then, but not as much as now, as I look back on it.
I turn on my side and see the corners of my letters folded in my personal belongings. I touch them tentatively with my fingers. They crinkle under my weight.
My hand falls away, my mind telling me that the papers still contain the same words that I had read just a bit ago.
It would be nice if they were different, though.
We're behind sand bags. Our feet are pressed against the ground, the dead grass and us being held in by the gate.
Against Al's shoulder is a machine gun. It's set up against the bags, aimed at a target several yards away from us.
A call is roared, and the gun bucks against his body, making him let out a heavy sigh as Eric says, "You missed, Capton. Fire again, come on, hurry up!"
I'm freezing. It's a cold morning, my arms around my torso, but Al is red and sweating everywhere. Eric calls him out on that. He sweats even more, darting past his forehead with his sleeve.
"Capton, hurry move! Let's move along, before we get old!" Eric says. Christina lets out a sigh. It's too early to hear Eric's angry, gleeful voice. He takes delight in yelling at us. It fits his bad boy persona, from his thick black boots to his sheared dark black hair to the piercings he has through his lips.
He walks up to Al, who is nervously loading another magazine, and leans close and says in a quiet voice, "Defying me, are you, Capton?"
Al doesn't talk back. He never does. He hates the yelling, the screaming, that seem unnecessary to him. But Eric shouts at him against, backing away as Al trembles with the sweat.
"Fire, Capton," Eric says. His voice sounds greasy, slick. "And don't miss. Don't you dare miss."
Al lets out a breath. A shot flies and hits the edge of the target.
Eric cocks his head. "Get away, Capton. Until you learn to at least aim, you shouldn't be using such an expensive, big machine like that. Go to the M4s again. Come back when you can learn not to wet yourself."
Al stands up, his face pink, and walks past Christina and I. Doesn't even meet our eyes. Too embarassed that we saw his humiliation.
But we see it every day. And we just stand by and watch. It's too much of a risk to have Eric on your back, and you'll have him on you if you talk back to him like I wish I could.
"Prior, to the gun, let's MOVE IT, SOLDIER," Eric says, walking past me and jutting a thumb to the gun.
Christina puts a hand on my shoulder. I straighten and walk to the sand bags. My pants get dirty as I kneel on the ground, position the gun against my shoulder. It feels heavy against me. I hold it steady, keep my eyes open as I set it to aim. Tobias told me to keep my eyes open. Only when holding a gun, though.
Locked in, I shoot.
The shot isn't the greatest. It hurts near the center, but not so close that I feel relieved.
"Pick it UP, PRIOR," Eric says, sounding annoyed that I didn't do it to his standards.
I let out a breath and aim once more. Another shot. Still, about the same distance.
"PRIOR," Eric says. "Look at me."
I sigh and turn to him with a resolutely blank face.
"Don't be Capton, Prior," Eric says maliciously. "He's going to fail this course. Don't do that. I don't suggest it."
I see someone behind him. He taps Eric on the shoulder, makes him turn.
"My turn with this group, Eric," Tobias says. He doesn't meet my eyes, but I can just tell they're cold.
"Says who?" Eric wants to know, cracking a smile.
"Commander Eaton, sir," Tobias says quietly.
"Daddy, huh?" Eric shakes his head and walks away, shooting me an amused look as he disappears to another sand bag settlement.
Tobias glares after him. Daddy? Tobias's father. I just have connected the names before this. Marcus Eaton. He has to be Tobias's father. And yet he never mentioned that. He must have thought that I already knew.
We had first been introduced to Commander Marcus Eaton on Day 1. He had been tall, with greying, thin hair. His stature was strong and military strict, his eyes hard and cold, but his voice firm and serious, almost calm to a certain degree. He might have been trying to be nice, but he disturbed me. He wasn't supposed to be like that, like we were all going to be good friends after some training. No.
Tobias talks to a few soldiers but then comes up to me. I'm looking away from him, concentrating on the target ahead of me that I need to hit directly.
I didn't expect him to stoop down next to me and say quietly, "Relax a little. Being rigid isn't going to help you; it just makes you anxious."
My muscles relax and my eyes look around us frantically, but everybody is concentrating on their targets or are talking to each other while the drill sergeants aren't looking.
"We in the clear?" he says, his voice surprisingly light.
"You're not supposed to be so close to me in public," I remind him.
He isn't so worried as I am, though. "I know. Now, eyes open, and shoot. Now." He stands up, his hand brushing against my hand and arm, which is bare, as I am wearing a tank.
His touch tingles against my skin in the heat as I fire. The bullet hits the center, maybe half an inch off.
"Gotta be better than that, Prior," he says loudly, but his yelling isn't harsh. It's just there to let people know that he is still yelling at me, just as he should be.
Still, he and I manage to share a secret smile before he walks down the line. I look around the line and catch sight of Peter looking at me. His eyebrows are caught in a line, his lips in a frown.
"Prior!" Tobias yells, his voice harsh now. I swivel to see him glancing merely a second at Peter before turning to me and saying, "Move along, your turn is done! Stop hogging and move!"
I do so gladly. When I look back to Peter, he is shaking his head and pumping his target full of bullets.
He he he. Please review!
