As always, never without help, alpha and beta readers: Milner and BK2U.
Birthdays were never important to Four. Not only were they not celebrated in Abnegation, but Marcus would constantly say he wished that he'd never been born. One of his most consistent thoughts, after his panic in the dark had blended into the quiet of exhaustion, was how much better his life would have been if he'd been born a different child to different parents. Birth, for a long time, felt like the origin of his personal hell.
He never bothered to look up his official birth record. Janice had been the very first person to ever wish him a happy birthday on July thirty-first, the day before Choosing Day, one year after he made his choice to leave Abnegation. He'd been stunned and confused; he'd stared at her blankly, not knowing exactly what she'd said before an automatic thank you passed between them. He walked away, disoriented, and made it a few feet before it occurred to him to ask his age: seventeen or eighteen. Janice popped an eyebrow, informing him that he turned sixteen just before he joined Dauntless, younger than anyone else in his initiation class. At seventeen, he had his first, albeit awkward, moment of celebration — a moment when someone expressed that they were happy he'd been born.
But that wasn't what had him thinking about that first time he heard "Happy Birthday" directed at him. In Dauntless, birthdays were family affairs. Those with relations celebrated in large groups, with typical, loud exploits in the Pit or maybe adventures outside the compound to the city or the deserted, open spaces. Those without family celebrated with their friends, their surrogate family. Adopted by the Pedrads, he joined them in fervently calling out Uriah's name into the chasm and letting it echo off the cliffs surrounding the Pit. Together they whooped their way through the hallways and towards the city for a pre-dawn, family run, a screeching celebration of a kid who never saw eighteen, who never even saw seventeen, the youngest in his initiation class. A kid that almost shared his birthday. Four watched Zeke suddenly fall silent, and slow to the back before stopping completely. Four matched him and stood nearby, watching him catch his breath while slowly slipping into a crouch, then finally falling in a heap and sobbing.
Crying men make other men uncomfortable. Four bristled and gave Zeke a wide berth at first. But eventually, he reverted to his upbringing, sitting down next to him, setting his hand on Zeke's shoulder in consolation, and waited for something to change. Zeke's shoulders shook for minutes, then slowly settled down to hiccups and slower still back to breathing while he collected himself. He shifted with some embarrassment, glancing at Four and shrugging his hand off his shoulder with a laughing sigh.
"Hard day," Four commented. Zeke nodded, smearing snot down his sleeve with a snort. "You want time, or...?"
"Naw, I'm done." He slumped onto the heels of his hands and looked out at the fire-red sky. "No point in catching up now."
"Come on, I got a place we can go. I was going to take you at sunset, after dinner, but there's no time like the present." Four offered his hand, although he thought twice about the snot. If they got back early, he could make time to see Tris; she'd understand why their time got rearranged even if she'd be mad about getting stood up. They passed back through the hallways to the training center. Four hit his chip against the scanner and opened the weapons locker; he grabbed a shotgun.
"Birds aren't flying."
"Yeah, it's not for the birds." Four sucked on his teeth, checking the chamber and loading all six shots, and then put a box in his pocket. "You got your sidearm?"
"No."
Four grabbed a standard issue off the shelf and pushed it at him.
"What about you?"
"If you think I'm running anywhere in this town unarmed..." Four lifted his jacket to show his side holster. He stopped by his locker and pulled out a yellow folder, rolled it up and then took two water containers and filled them.
"Where are we going?" Zeke protested, getting only silence in return.
Four paused at the infirmary and asked Karla to tell Tris he wouldn't be meeting her for breakfast. "You know, in case she needs an escort to work."
"Sure thing, I'll find her. Where you going?"
"Just tell her I'm out with Zeke doing family things."
"Seriously, you don't have to cancel something with Tris." Zeke tried to reason with him, but Four was already heading down the hall.
Four stamping through the compound with urgency never drew much attention, but doing it with one hand in his pocket and a shotgun slung over his other shoulder earned him scrutiny and a wary distance. Zeke pursued, trying to get Four to talk, but Four didn't slow his pace. Zeke had to occasionally run a few paces to recover the ground he lost against each long stride. Zeke finally looked around and took in his location in the city. They were a fast mile away from the compound in a factionless sector rife with conflict. The heat radiated from the concrete like a three-sided oven, and the temperature climbed as they walked. He finally gave up trying to keep up and settled for a losing pace. When he made the corner, he assumed he'd see Four around the bend, gaining more ground down the street. The solid, warm mass of his best friend leaning in the shade of the building jolted him. Without the hands that grabbed his shoulders and steadied him, Zeke may have been knocked over.
"God, you're slow," Four commented.
"What is the hurry? Where the hell are we going? And what's got you so bent out of shape?"
"If I stopped, you'd yammer at me, and then we'd never get there."
"Where are we going?" Zeke glared. "I should get back, Mom's having a rough day."
"She knows I'm taking you out. Her idea." Four slapped him on the shoulder and turned again. "Now come on. It's not exactly close."
"Where are we going?" Zeke demanded.
"Yammer, yammer, yammer." Four made the talking motion with his free hand. Zeke's nostrils flared, but he followed, regardless of the silence.
The shadows grew darker, shorter; the day flipped from morning to midday and still Four's pace didn't waver. Zeke became concerned that they would run out of water just as they slipped out from the decaying buildings of the city into the open space. They were out beyond any structures, where the pavement had crumbled into pebbles beneath the overgrown plants. Zeke glanced around them, through the trees and back toward the city, seeing the tall buildings of the city center small and distant.
Four came to a stop, taking a long drink from his water. "You know how Uriah used to disappear, right?"
"Yeah." Zeke eyed him. "I told Tris about it not too long ago. Did she mention it or do you still think about it, too? I can't believe we never even got him on film."
"Not leaving the compound, anyways. Which is what you asked," Four added in defense.
Zeke glared at him, "You got him on film?" Four nodded and pointed at a camera. "You're saying he came out here? What the hell is out here?"
"It's just one of the places he'd come. He'd walk that route, exactly what we just did, all the way to here, where the buildings end and it's just concrete slabs." Four pointed and Zeke squinted, but they were a hill or so away from being able to see.
Zeke snorted a laugh. "You're kidding me? It's the middle of nowhere."
"He wouldn't come out here every time. Not always. But sometimes, he would just walk a good ways out there, sit for a bit, and then head back."
Zeke looked around, examined the path behind them for a few steps, then turned back forward and glanced around. "How do you know that? There can't be cameras all the way out there."
Four seemingly ignored him. "Why would Uriah sneak out? I just kept asking myself that. I watched him take that exact path on five separate days, all the way out until the end of the cameras. I used to do that, too, you know. I used to walk for hours when I was supposed to be volunteering or after school or whatever, just any chance to get out and be by myself. So, you know, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt that it was for a good reason. So, before I turned him in to you and Hana, I thought I'd figure it out. See why he was being so secretive. And I waited exactly at that corner like I did for you. I had to wait three nights in a row before he finally showed up."
"And?" Zeke soured more as Four dragged on.
"And he was exactly what I said, what I told you. A good kid that wasn't out being bad just because he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He just wanted a little privacy."
"Privacy for what?"
"Zeke, Uriah was Divergent."
"He was fifteen. He wasn't anything. He's a Pedrad. He's a fucking Pedrad!" Zeke shouted.
"Yeah, he was fifteen but he already knew he was different, that he wasn't just Dauntless. He actually thought he wasn't Dauntless at all."
"He's a Pedrad. We've been Dauntless for generations."
"Yeah, I know."
"Why would he tell you that, and not me?"
"He didn't want to disappoint you. He was a shitty liar, you remember. It only took a couple questions to narrow it down. I'd been through the signs with Amar a couple times, I already had my suspicions. I still had to drag it out of him. I threatened to turn him in to your mom to get him to talk." That reality made Zeke laugh. They crested the hill and looked down the gentle slope to the scant river that wound its way through the vast dry bed like a child in its parent's footprint. "So yeah, now you know. This is one of the places he'd come."
"Where else did he go?" Zeke stopped a few steps down the slope not really interested in communing with ghosts on the river bank.
"He spent a lot of time in the factionless areas, too. He talked to some of them, when they'd let him. He said he wanted to know what it was like in case it was where he ended up."
Zeke nodded, his hands on his hips while he surveyed the valley. "So, what was he? Amity? Candor?"
"Don't know. He managed to pull just Dauntless. I told him it was better to fly under the radar that way, even if it made choosing harder."
"He wasn't afraid to lie, even if he was bad at it," Zeke mused.
"Yeah, certainly not Candor," Four laughed.
"Shit grades."
"I had great grades, you won't find me in Erudite," Four pointed out.
"Yeah, I guess he didn't really do his homework. He was really nice. Maybe he was a Stiff?"
"More likely Amity, don't you think? He could have charmed the pants off Eric, if he got enough time," Four offered.
"I dunno, that might be going too far. But if you dared him he would have tried. Yeah, he was probably Amity. All the obnoxious singing!" Zeke cringed, "What about you? You really Stiff and Dauntless? Couldn't see you in Amity. Too many fucking secrets for Candor."
"I'm just Dauntless, now." Four smirked, rubbing the slick-shaved sides of his head. Zeke rolled his eyes and turned for the walk back. Zeke letting it go, not asking, not demanding something from him when he so rightfully could, made him decide to confide. "My Dad coached me to make sure I got an Abnegation result, so I'll never really know if Dauntless is me or if it's a mistake. You know, according to the Bureau, I'm not actually Divergent. I'm just weird."
"Weird is right... But you being here, being Dauntless, that's not a mistake." Four nodded his thanks and looked back out at the landscape. "Was it horrible all the time?"
"Hmm?"
"With your dad, was it always horrible?"
"No. Not all the time. Just enough. In phases, really." He downplayed; Zeke could read the omission in Four's expression. Four's history of avoiding exposing himself had always been a boundary he understood and respected. It surprised him when Four continued, "For instance, he's the one that taught me about computers. It was his dirty little secret up in the attic. And he liked cars. Fixing things. We have that in common. But that was basically the only time we seemed to get along. We'd be working on a project and it would be nice. You know? Like I felt helpful, I felt useful. Until I screwed up. And there were a million ways to screw up. But all that's over." Four shrugged and smiled.
"Yeah, everything ends: the good and the bad." Zeke gave a sad smile. "So, why are you ratting Uriah out now? You obviously didn't think it was important last year. Could have just stayed a secret."
"Because, he was your brother. And if I had better judgment he might not be dead. I owe you something for that, anything. And all I've got is a tiny bit of him that you didn't know."
"You don't owe me anything."
"Sure I do. I owe you a lot more than I can give you. I mean, not just because of what happened to Uriah. For everything. For tattoos, and dares, and pranks. And teaching me how to be a friend, and for calling me your brother and then acting like it's true. I just..."
"Four-"
"...you just haven't given up on me when you probably should have."
"Four!"
"I mean, I've given up on people for much less. It's just, I don't really des-"
"Shut the fuck up!" Zeke shouted, raising his arms up to get more attention. Four flinched and seemed to blink in vulnerable shock. Guilt took over and Zeke corrected himself, "Errr, sorry, Four, but just stop a second." Zeke grabbed his arm with a reassuring smile. His eyebrows creased together, his usual smile fixed into a serious grimace. "Now, I'm only going to say this once. Just once, and if I have to tell you this again, I'm going to literally beat it into your head. Four, you're family. I mean it. We all mean it. And family isn't ever something you deserve. Family is who you need when you need them, no matter what. You can only pay that back by being a part of it. And there's nothing you could ever do or say or fuck up that would get you treated any differently than me or Scarlet or Bern, or whoever. Okay? So stop. You're in this thing whether you like it or not, and not because you deserve it."
Four smiled softly looking down at his fingers; Zeke smacked his shoulder, harder than usual. "Okay. I think I get it. I'll let it sink in a bit." Four nodded and let a few breaths pass.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell."
"I uh… I hate yelling. That angry yelling thing. I used to be better about not reacting, but something about this therapy crap has me flinching over stupid shit," Four explained quickly, dropping his eyes.
"I'm really sorry."
"At least you didn't throw in my name. George did that a while back and I about swallowed my tongue."
"Yeah, well, I get it's not your favorite thing to be called."
"I mean, sort of. Tris uses it." Four shrugged and smiled. "You know, it's a family name. I had an uncle or something. My mom talked about him sometimes, but I can't remember much. Both names are just strange to me. Tobias is who I never wanted to be until Tris, and Four is some guy I barely was and I hardly recognize. But, I guess maybe I'll work my way back to Tobias. Like it would be okay for family to use Tobias, but just family. Sometimes it's actually kind of nice to hear it. Sometimes it's nice not to be Four."
"You saying you want me to whisper sweet nothings to you like Tris does?" Zeke leaned in and hissed next to Four's ear, "Mmmm, Tobias!" Four smacked him and turned red. Zeke shoved him back and then let his hand settle on Tobias's shoulder, "Trust me, I'll use it sparingly and quietly until you tell me it's really what you want me to use all the time."
"Thanks." Four diverted his eyes and brought the focus back. "So, about Uriah. He'd come up here, just up over that hill. And he'd sit there and just think or sing or whatever he wanted. And some other times he'd go out and talk to the factionless, in case he couldn't land anywhere. He was trying to make himself feel better because he didn't think he was Dauntless enough. I told him that was bull, that if I could get through, so could he."
"He really thought he couldn't cut it?"
"Yeah, it was in his landscape even, in a couple ways. I had to coach him a bit at first, but he managed to control the problematic parts." Four paused and pulled a tightly rolled folder out from under his jacket. "Uriah Stewart Pedrad," he stated, flipping it open.
"His middle name was not Stewart." Zeke rolled his eyes.
"It just says "S", so I gotta make it up as I go along."
"Sydney. Uriah Sydney, that's also a family name, my dad's oldest brother — Bernie's dad." Zeke filled in, glancing at the papers, "So, what's in there? I've never seen an official file before."
"Well, normally they get digitized and shredded the day after initiation. But no one seemed to get to the shredding part. So I found this when I was cleaning up for this year. I've got notes on each initiate. It's got their fight results, shooting scores, some discussions on attitude and potential job fits. Then it's got summaries of the fears that showed up in stage two. I don't have anything on his final, I never saw it. Those notes get added at drills to the digital records."
He handed Zeke the folder. He scanned the pages nodding at some, laughing at others. "Lizards, eh?"
"Yeah, that was a weird one. Snakes, sure, that one's common — well, you know — but the lizards..."
"I used to catch them whenever I could and put them in his bed, until Dad made me stop."
"Asshole." They enjoyed laughing together. Four watched Zeke's eyes start to scan, and he felt like he needed to say something first. "Look the next one — being sick. Sometimes it's hard to articulate the fear because the image is hazy, but… basically, it was him wasting away in a bed. Like being trapped in his body with the whole family outside the door looking in through the window." Four could have slammed his own hand in the door after seeing how Zeke's face fell.
"Our dad. That's how he died, you know. Not some big bang or a stunt, like uh, Sydney or Ger. He got cancer and it didn't get caught until it was everywhere. He begged my mom to shoot him, but she couldn't. He needed help to jump the chasm because he waited until I was through initiation. I had to take one side and Uriah took the other and the whole family lined up to support him. I thought it would be easier to watch, knowing he was sick, but it was... it was gonna be hard no matter what. Sucks that that showed up in Uriah's landscape. But he didn't die like that. He wasn't in there, Four. He was gone the minute that blast hit him."
"You believe that?"
"No lines, man. No brain waves, no person. He was gone. We knew the second we walked in the room," Zeke assured, but Four would always have questions, knowing that Tris came back from nothing.
Four flipped the page, eager to distract him, "Cotton balls. Who's afraid of cotton balls?"
Zeke chuckled and pulled the sheet closer to read. "Oh, jeez. I didn't know it was that serious. I thought he just hated how they felt. It would make him cringe having to touch them or when they'd use them for shots. But a fear?" Zeke scoffed, "Always was a little bit of a drama queen."
"Sometimes the system reaches a bit," Four admitted, "He only had eight. I mean, eight is really low. So it was grasping at straws."
"So do you actually have four, or is one, like, you sitting in a pink room?"
He got an eye roll and a partial admission, "I wish."
"Hey, did you find Lynn's folder?"
"Yeah, I got them all."
"Mind if I tell Shauna? I mean, I don't know if it's anything different than the journals, but it could be. She might want to see it."
"Yeah, sure. I'll get Lynn's stuff together. I don't see the harm in it going missing. No one's going to go looking for it."
"Thanks."
Four didn't hustle them back at the same pace, allowing Zeke more time to think. A lot of emotions crashed down from his brain through his throat and into his chest. He realized that a sadness had settled into him that never really left after that trip to the Bureau. But it had faded to the background over the last year. Thinking about all the things birthdays usually marked highlighted what Uriah would never be: a smile across the table, a prank partner, the uncle to his kids. Which inevitably made him think of all the things he'd become without him: a leader in patrol, maybe a candidate for leadership, a father. He also thought about how he'd found a new brother, embraced him and filled a little bit of that void. He felt guilty for a heartbeat that Uriah might think he'd been replaced.
He glanced over at Tobias, who looked pensive and unfocused, dealing with his own thoughts and emotions. Zeke watched his friend's eyes dart out, scan, and then glass over, lost in the empty spaces. Zeke felt better making the comparisons. Uriah was Uriah, and Tobias was Tobias, and while he loved Tobias, he was not a replacement for his affable brother. And much like Uriah, Tobias kept his burdens to himself, but maybe the point of the trip wasn't to make him feel better, but to give Tobias a chance to share more about himself than he usually did. To cement the bond. And that fuzzy, unfocused look hinted at a lot of thoughts careening all at once.
"What's on your mind?" Zeke prompted.
"Nothing."
"Something."
"Well, I've been thinking about some stuff Tris and I talked about."
"Okay. Like what?"
"I uh… I'm going to marry Tris."
Zeke didn't realize his legs had stopped moving until Tobias came back to retrieve him. "What? You proposed?"
"No, not proposed. But I just... she needed to know that that's what I want."
"Is she… um… you guys get a little reckless?"
"What?"
"Is she, you know…" Zeke made a motion with his hand at his belly.
"No! Why is that your first question?"
"Well, jeez, man. No one gets married!"
"Everyone does in Abnegation."
"And you're not Abnegation anymore."
"Well, why don't people get married in Dauntless?"
"Well, they do, when they're all old and stuff. But our age? It's... all the options go away, man. Like, you... her... forever?"
"I'm not interested in options. Are you interested in options?"
"Well, no. Of course not," Zeke declared.
"So, why don't you want to marry Shauna?"
"I mean, we might. Now that, you know… but really, that's just secondary. People usually just move in together and skip all that paperwork and stuff."
"Yeah, well, I'm going to do it, someday. Give it a couple years maybe, but I don't want anyone else."
"But... you're... young. How the hell do you even stumble into that conversation?"
"Well, it was something Lauren said when she was talking me through things. That it's what Stiffs do. We get married young, have families young."
"You're no Stiff, man."
"I know, but that is what we were both raised with. So it's a starting place we have in common. She needed to know that if that's where we end up, I would leave with her if she needed to. That I would stick it out with her no matter what."
"But, she's back in, right?"
"Yeah. She was gonna come back regardless of where we stood. She just couldn't come back to me without some sort of commitment that I'd leave Dauntless with her. And if we get close enough that we get married, I'd follow her."
"Wow… getting married? Going factionless? You could just start with a plant."
Four cracked up. "Like, we're not gonna right now. Not right away. We have work to do."
"Congratulations?"
"Don't sound so happy for me." Four kept laughing. "Besides, I'm curious, you said you two might?"
"Oh, dude, long story. My mom says it's just the hormones talking, but we will see. Right now, Shauna gets whatever Shauna wants and I wouldn't want it any other way."
"Aren't we just blowing up the Dauntless stereotype?"
"Truth, man," Zeke chuckled.
Please review. Also, please check out my one-shot/short titled "Flashes in Memoriam".
