AN: Thank you as always for the reviews and encouragement.
I didn't expect to ever be here again.
I wasn't paying much attention when I followed Dustin to his apartment, I was trying so hard to keep my head down and avert my swollen, cried out eyes from the prying eyes of our faction. After he had asked me multiple times if I was sure, he finally led me up into The Pire to his studio apartment. I didn't want to be out in public right now, where Eric would likely be looking for me after I blurted out that I was in love with him. I needed to be far away from him, and I needed to forget him.
When we walked into Dustin's apartment, I stopped immediately, focusing on the main wall. "Fear God Alone" is still spray painted on the wall, and I can't stop looking at it.
"Yeah, the last person who lived here must have done that," He gestures towards it, "It's kind of cool."
"This was Four's apartment. He lived here when we first dated." I say quietly.
"Oh fuck, I had no idea, Tris. We can go somewhere else..."
"It's okay. It just caught me off guard. We had good memories here, we were just kids ourselves really." I shake my head with a smile.
"Want some coffee?" He asks and I furrow my brow at him, "I know it's weird, but I drink coffee pretty much all day. I have bacon and eggs here, how about some breakfast for dinner?"
"That all sounds good to me, what can I do to help?"
"Sit there and talk to me. Seriously, this is easy stuff." He pulls out a bar stool for me and I plant myself at his kitchen island.
I look around and find things that are familiar, but so different. Tobias barely had any furniture, where Dustin actually has made the once sparse space feel homey and lived in.
"It looks really nice in here." I remark and he grins at me.
"Thanks, I can't take all the credit though, my ex girlfriend has really good decorating taste and she did a lot with the place when she lived here with me. It's not much, but it's been home for a while. I guess I moved in right after your ex moved out, and it was just this empty space. It just needed something, but that," he gestures toward the wall, "needed to stay. It caused more than one discussion between my ex and me, but it felt Dauntless. From what I remember, he was pretty much the epitome of Dauntless."
"He was actually Abnegation born, like me." I reply quietly and he glances over at me.
"I didn't realize that, about either of you." Dustin shakes his head, "I thought my transferring from Amity was an anomaly on its own, but two Abnegation transfers, wow. He was my instructor too, I'd never have guessed it."
"He could have been a great Dauntless, he just made some really bad choices. I'm sure you've heard, everyone has."
"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to live with his shitty decisions, or anyone else's." He replies as he continues to work on dinner.
I meet his eyes, "How much of that did you hear earlier?"
"Enough to know I needed to knock on that door even though every part of me was screaming for me to just walk away." He replies.
"Dustin, I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I know it sounds crazy, but I've known for a while that you have feelings for him. He's a guy who stepped up, when he didn't have to, and he's been good to you and your kids." He replies.
"We don't have to talk about him-"
"I brought you here to talk about him, about the kids, about your ex, anything Tris. You need a friend right now, someone who maybe can give you a male perspective on some of the shit you've got going on that's not a friend of any of them. What did he do?" He slides a plate with bacon and eggs towards me and he sits down with one of his own.
"He and I became friends over tattoos, kind of like me and you. My ex-husband hated him, and I gave him a chance." I shrug.
"Why'd Four hate him so much?" He asks.
"Jealousy from when they were in initiation together, it never went away. He believed that Eric had ties to his old faction, but the irony is that Four's the one who ended up being a traitor."
"How are you handling things?" He asks.
"I mean, it's been hard, the kids…" I sigh and he places a hand on mine.
"Not the kids, you." He says carefully and I take another deep breath.
"We were raised in Abnegation, where by the time we are adults we're married. He and I started seeing each other again my first week here. I'd known him in Abnegation, and we'd even embarked on what would be considered courting in our old faction. Nothing sexual, nothing even resembling a relationship here, but he'd gotten my father's permission to walk me home, things like that. I had no idea he was going to choose Dauntless, I had no idea he'd ever even consider leaving Abnegation. It's not like we were really anything to each other, it was more of him walking me home from school, and sometimes having dinner with us. He left, without any answers."
"Did you follow him here?" He asks.
"I did," I nod my head, "I've never told anyone that, except my therapist," I chuckle through the tears that threaten to fall, "I did get Dauntless as one of my recommended factions on my aptitude test, but I had no idea what I was getting into here. I just wanted to get the hell out of Abnegation, because my father was already preparing me for marriage, and I never would have been a woman who was just going to nod her head and submit to her husband."
Dustin laughs out loud and I join him, "Hell no, you aren't. So you follow your first love to Dauntless, what happened next?"
"Four and I got together, and we had the best version of a Dauntless relationship, at least what we interpreted it to be. He still had so many Abnegation beliefs, and we tried so hard to make it work. It seemed to be working, until it didn't. When he left, I was blindsided, but not because he wanted to leave. I'd been feeling him pull away for months."
"What blindsided you?" He asks.
"Him telling me he didn't think he ever loved me, and that he didn't want to be someone's father. Dustin, he loved those boys so much. He was so excited when I was pregnant, and he was such a good dad to them. It was like a switch was flipped, and one day my boys had a loving father, and the next they didn't. He left me, he left them, and he denied all of us."
"Is that how you and Eric get so close?" He asks.
I nod, "He broke up with his girlfriend around the same time Four left me. We bonded over that, and then he became close with the boys too. So close that my ex-husband accused him of being the father of all of our children. Eric was there at the hospital when Jewel was born, while Christina was watching my boys. We just were so close. Ugh, Dustin I don't want to ruin our date by talking about my exes." I bury my face in my hands.
"How about we take all of the pretenses of this being any type of date off the table? I like you, Tris. I also respect the fact that you need a friend right now. You're in love with someone else, and he's hurt you. I'm completely okay with being that friend you need right now, because what matters to me is that you're happy." He replies.
"How can you be so nice?" I ask.
"Former Amity, it's not like we just lose that part of ourselves when we leave. I'm sure there's a lot of Abnegation left with you, right?"
"That's my issue, there's a part of me that's just stuck there, even though I hated the way women were treated there. I think that's why it's been so hard for me to figure this out with him." I reply.
"I heard you yelling at him, and I heard what you said. Were the two of you together and he had someone on the side?" He asks.
"No. We've been friends for so long, and my kids adore him. My youngest son calls him Daddy, and my daughter doesn't even know any other father than him. My oldest son trusts him, he's the only person besides his therapist that he talks to about Four. A couple of months ago, the kids got really sick, and Eric stayed with us at the house. It felt like something had been shifting before then, but when he was there with us it felt like we had moved towards something more. Then, I ran into this nurse in the infirmary who told me to start taking care of my own kids so she could have her boyfriend back."
"Ouch." He says.
"Yeah." I agree before eating more bacon, "This is good, by the way."
"Told you I could cook." He winks at me, "So, she calls him her boyfriend?"
"He said she was someone he was involved with before me. Casual. Sex. Whatever. I kicked him out of the house, he said he went there to talk to her, to let her know that what she was doing was fucked up, and that it was never a relationship. My friend Marlene was working in the control room that night and said he'd stayed there overnight, so I asked him what happened and he told me he went over there angry at me. Got drunk." I can feel tears burning.
"He slept with her?"
I shake my head, "He said he stopped her, she was, um..." I trail off.
"I heard that part." He replies softly, "Tris, devil's advocate here, is it possible that she may have taken advantage of his drunken state, and when he realized what was going on he stopped it?"
"I don't know."
"I was working with Marlene that shift, and I saw him leave the apartment too. She stopped watching because she was angry, but I kept watching him. Tris, he could barely walk." He adds, "Angry men do stupid shit, like drink their issues away."
"You're telling me that you would have done something like that?" I ask.
"I'm telling you that it's happened to me too," He replies with a sigh, "I mentioned my ex used to live here, her name is Jessica. We were engaged to be married. We had a fight one night, and I admit it was a bad one because Jess had gotten it into her head that I was sleeping with one of my coworkers while at work, and Jess left here madder than hell. She didn't come home that night. I thought she may have spent the night with her best friend Gia, like to cool down or something, so I didn't think much of it at first. I went down to the cafeteria before work and saw G down there, asked her where Jess was and she had no idea. I started texting Jess, and after maybe an hour I get the dreaded 'We need to talk' response. I found out she'd headed down to the bar, got plastered, and went home with some dude home from fence duty."
"Oh Dustin," I say quietly.
"Jess isn't much of a drinker, she's a glass of wine on the weekend and gets tipsy kind of girl. I guess the guy was buying her shots, and she willingly went home with him. She regrets it, she went down to the infirmary the next day and tried to see if she was drugged, but it wasn't that. The crazy thing is she thought I was sleeping with Marlene. I mean, Marlene and I do flirt, it's just in both of our natures, but we're both in happy relationships you know? Jess hated Marlene, and that night she decided she'd had enough. She made a mistake." He shrugs.
"Have you been able to forgive her?" I ask and he shrugs again.
"I don't know. I want to, but I have the image of her and this random dude seared in my brain. Doesn't help that I see him on the cameras at the fence constantly. Like I can't look at him without thinking of what they did."
"How long has it been?"
"Quite a few months," He sighs.
"Why don't you try to get her back?" I ask.
"I'm not sure that I'm ready for it. What if it happens again? What if this whole incident is a divine intervention or some shit, telling me I'm not supposed to be with her?" He shakes his head, "I sound like an idiot." He chuckles.
"Well that makes us both idiots. Right before I texted you today, I had a similar conversation with my friend Christina saying maybe my blind devotion to whatever was happening with Eric was keeping me from seeing someone right in front of me."
He smiles softly at me, "We're a couple of fucked up individuals, huh?"
"More like fucked over." I retort and somehow we both break out in laughter. Once we've both composed ourselves, I begin speaking again, "Dustin, from what you were saying earlier, it sounds like you might be ready to forgive her."
"I may be, but that doesn't mean I want her back. I'm still processing things in my head." He replies.
"Eric said that the whole thing with Esme was a distraction. They first started hooking up when he broke up with his serious girlfriend, I guess it's how he processed." I shrug. I take both of our cleared plates into the kitchen and begin rinsing them. Dustin joins me, and we move around easily in the familiar space.
I remember so many times doing this same thing with Tobias, cleaning up after an impromptu dinner while he was my trainer and I was his initiate.
"Is it too weird being here?" Dustin asks me. It's then that I realize I've been staring off into space.
"It's different being here with you." I reply.
The skin around his blue eyes crinkle when he lifts his lips in a grin. Dustin is so different than what I've known my entire time here, his Amity background gives him a calming presence that isn't there with Eric, or even before with Tobias. Eric has the pressure of helping to run a faction on his young shoulders, where Tobias had his conflict of being in this faction on his. I move close to Dustin, closing the space between us in the already cramped kitchen space, and when he allows me to wrap my arms around him, and his around me I can feel my body relax.
"We're both hurting, but maybe we can help each other?" I say it so quietly that I'm not even sure he can hear me. He draws his blue eyes down to mine, and his lips part slightly.
"Tris, what are you saying?" He asks.
"I don't know." I nervously try to move away but he holds me closer and I relax again. I can feel every nerve in my body reacting to touching him.
"We both need to know. We're both going through some pretty heavy shit because the people we love were sexually involved with someone else. We need to think about what happens next, Tris." Dustin says.
He's the voice of reason.
"It's always been something with someone. I've only been with Four, and only after we were married. I've wanted Eric, but he wanted someone else. I want to forget, even if it's just for tonight, I want to feel Dauntless."
"You are Dauntless, regardless of any of that." He breathes out.
He's not Tobias. He's not Eric. And right now I don't care. I lean towards him and he doesn't hesitate to meet me half way and when our lips meet I pull him impossibly closer. There's been no one but Tobias, and I want to erase every thought of Esme and Eric from my mind.
"Tris," Dustin is breathless when he speaks again, "I don't want to take advantage of you, you're upset, this isn't right."
I stop him from talking by kissing him again and our tongues tangle together. His beard tickles my cheeks and when he moves from my lips to my neck I let out a slight moan.
"I want you." I finally breathe out and he returns to my lips.
"Tris..." He voice holds the slightest hesitation. A warning of sorts.
I don't care.
I push him towards the bed, and he falls into it, pulling me on top of him. I can feel his hands traveling under my sweater dress, his finger tips cool against my heated skin. I straddle him, lifting my arms so he can pull the dress over my head, our lips only breaking apart for that. When I tug at his shirt, he removes it and I move to unbutton his jeans. He helps me to push them down his legs, and I can see his erection straining against his boxers.
He's not Tobias.
He's not Eric.
He's looking down at me with hooded eyes, and it's obvious he's giving me a chance to change my mind.
I close my eyes and all I can think of is this could be the same thing that Esme saw the last time she was with Eric, and it's then that I break into tears.
"Oh Tris, it's okay." He reaches for me and I cry harder, "This is too much, we don't have to go any further. Come here," He says as he gently moves so I'm tucked beside him, wrapped in his arms.
"I'm so sorry," I choke out through tears.
"You have nothing to be sorry for. You're hurting, and that's okay. You don't have to be strong all of the time."
"My whole time here, I've been living for someone else. Four. My beautiful children. Eric..." I choke back a sob.
"You are so much more than just that. I met you as the spunky and fucking gorgeous tattoo artist. I saw you come to life as you drew across my skin. That's the Tris I know, the woman who just happens to also be a kick ass mother raising three kids after her ex walked away. Four, Eric, those kids of yours, they are all extensions of the fucking amazing woman you are. You are Dauntless, Tris. You remember back in training when Eric said that we chose Dauntless, and now they had to choose us?" He asks and I nod against his chest, "They did. We are Dauntless, but we'll always have a little bit of home in us."
"Dustin..."
"It's okay to be in love with him, Tris. I'm still in love with Jess. We're both in the same situation. We can help each other through it, you've become an important friend to me and I'll be damned if I'm going to jeopardize that over a distraction hookup. That's not who we are, and that doesn't make us any less Dauntless." He presses his lips to my forehead and I finally relax against him.
"Why didn't they stop?" I finally ask and I can feel him take a deep breath in.
"It's quite possible that it was the heavy drinking. Not everyone thinks like us you know." He says, "I came from Amity, where they stone us out of our fucking mind from birth. When I came here, I made a decision not to let myself get into a situation where my awareness is numbed by any substance. Jess is from Erudite, Eric too right?" He asks and I nod, "They're not exactly raised with the best coping skills. When a situation isn't logical in their mind, they don't know how to deal with it. He's a different leader than he is dad, right?" He asks and I nod again, "A former Erudite can compartmentalize, and when something doesn't fit neatly into one of those compartments, they panic."
"Oh my gosh," I whisper and I look up at him, "I never realized it."
"I've loved a former Erudite for a very long time, it took me a while to realize it myself."
"Will you ever forgive her?" I ask and he nods.
"Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other to die. I've stopped being angry, and I'll eventually find a way to forgive her. It's the forgetting that is proving to be the hardest." He sighs.
"Yes it is." I agree.