repost for minor edits: 10/19/2020
Zeke shrugged as he started filling his plate, "Still, Brandy's okay, but she's not you."
Four looked at Zeke and glared. I look away and glance up at Christina who is smiling from ear to ear.
Zeke sees Four glaring at him, "What?"
Four shook his head and grumbled, "Has it ever occurred to you that you talk too much?"
"Why are you in such a bad mood?" Zeke asked.
"Maybe I'm just tired of the melodrama of all the Dauntless relationship angst," Four stated.
Zeke smiled as he took another bite, "Or maybe you just need to get laid."
I burst out laughing because I did understand that reference. Unfortunately I choked on my food at the same time.
Four stared at me waiting for me to catch my breath, and once I was able to get a drink he said angrily, "I'm glad you find Zeke's jokes funny."
I shook my head, "It's more that I agree you need to loosen up a little. Have a little more fun sometimes." I nod to where some of the leaders were sitting and laughing at some joke. "Even they don't sit brooding all the time. If you can't enjoy life at all then what's the point?"
"I believe it was Uriah who said last night that you were the female version of me," he stated pointing out the irony of me telling him to loosen up.
I glared at him, "Well at least I know how to have fun and take a joke." I get up and take my tray to the tray return and walk out. Since I'm not sure if that was Four or Tobias I don't know if I'm mad or not and I don't even know who I'm mad at. Which, of course, makes me mad.
"Tris," I hear my name and him running up behind me, "Tris, I'm sorry."
"What?" I say surprised and confused. It's not like Four to apologize to anyone but Tobias isn't really known around here.
"I'm sorry, I took that too far and I'm sorry," he stated again quietly as he gets closer, "It's just that you seem to fit in here better than I do sometimes and to be honest I'm jealous about how easy it is for you."
We are standing face to face on one of the ledges in the Pit leading up to the Fear landscape rooms. He's close enough that I can smell his scent mixed with whatever soap he used. I cross my arms and ask, "Do you think you can work on that please? I'm tired of fighting with you all the time."
He put his hands on his hips, "Yeah, I'll try."
"Thank you. Now can we get this Fear Landscape thing done," I ask.
He nods, "Yeah but you're going to want to change clothes. That dress looks good on you but it's not very practical for what you need to do." Then he gives me the small smile that melts my heart.
My mouth dropped open. He just complemented me in front of people and then smiled. Oh my God, Tobias is coming out and I'm not sure how to handle this.
"I'll meet you in the Fear Landscape room," I say and went back towards my apartment.
Christina was standing near the door to the dining hall watching the encounter and couldn't handle it any longer and followed me.
"I told you, didn't I? He's got a thing for you. The look he gave Zeke could have turned a person to stone," she said.
"Christina, I seriously don't know how to react to that right now. I have to take care of something and I need to focus on the task ahead of me." I add walking away.
"We need to talk about this soon," she said with a smile.
"As soon as I can, yes, but not right now," I say with a wave.
After I come out of my fear landscape I saw Four smiling at me, "You amaze me," he said.
I smiled back shyly as I caught my breath, "You're just glad you weren't there again." I looked up at the camera in the corner then back at him
"I'm very happy I wasn't there again for many reasons. But you just overcame one of your fears. I wasn't sure that was possible. Now I have hope." He said with a smile. "I sent your results to Max so officially you have the second least amount of fears."
"Six," I laugh. I want to go to him but I have no idea where we are at in this game of ours or who might be watching us .
He gathers the syringe and serum bottles, putting them back in the black box, "Let's get out of here. I want to go by the training room and see if Max is there to let him know I sent him the results."
"I'm heading on up to bed. I'll have a long day tomorrow," I say back to him while giving him a meaningful look, as we walk out the door.
He puts a hand on my back to usher me into the hallway, "That's probably a good idea. We have some busy days ahead of us."
He walks back down to the Pit with me and brushes my hand with his a couple of times. He's flirting with me like he's not sure if he should or not. Neither one of us really know what we're doing with this kind of thing. If we were in Abnegation it would be even more awkward than this but here it's all confusion because our relationship is actually further along than the way we are playing it. We really just jumped over this part but we have to play it for everyone else. I almost wish I could just grab him and kiss him in front of everyone in the dining hall someday so it would just be done and over with. Maybe I really am more Dauntless than I thought.
We walked through the Pit together and Tori looked up from the front desk at the Tattoo shop. Her eyes went big and looked between Four and myself. Was it that obvious? I felt heat rush up in my cheeks and thought of course it was when my face lit up like a red light.
"Tris, come over here a minute," Tori shouted at me as I was walking by.
Four and I stopped and I looked at him, "I'll see you later."
"Yeah, okay," he said reluctantly and then walked away.
I walked into the shop where Tori was standing, "Hey, what's up?"
"I could ask you the same thing. What's that about?" she said with a little grin.
I blush again, "I don't know, nothing probably. I'm so confused."
She nodded as she sorted out some designs at the desk, "Be careful, you have a lot to lose."
"Yeah, I know. But he just scrambles me up. It's like my brain short circuits when I get near him," I tell her.
Christina bounces into the shop with us and I ask her, "Where's Will?"
She shrugged, "He went off to train with Zeke and Uriah. I know I should go to but I wanted some girl talk. What guys are we talking about? As if I didn't know?" In a dramatic whisper she says, "Four."
Tori chuckled, "The hot ones are always trouble and the troubled ones are even bigger trouble. And the hot troubled ones are not to be messed with."
Christina tilted her head as she hopped up on a stool, "You think Four is troubled?"
Tori shrugged, "I think he keeps to himself a lot and there's probably a reason for that."
"Good point," Christina nods, "Hey, Tori, I never see you with anyone. What's up with that?"
Tori shook her head sadly, "Not anyone interesting enough to stick with I guess."
I could feel the sadness creep into me. If she'd spent her whole life here in Dauntless and not found someone then she may not find anyone. At least not in her own faction and how sad would it be to care for someone who went to another faction. Thoughts like this made me wonder if our system really worked. What if we were attracted to people that weren't always similar to ourselves but we couldn't be with them because they were in a different faction?
"Tris?" Christina said my name and waved her hand in front of my face, getting my attention. "Where'd you go? You just zoned out there for a minute."
I shook my head, "Just thinking about things. Hey, I have to get to bed and get some sleep. It's going to be a long day tomorrow. I'll see you both in the training room tomorrow evening?"
Christina nodded, "Yeah, I'll be there."
Tori added, "See you then."
"I told Max that you had rid yourself of that fear that I was in. He asked if any others had taken its place and I told him no," Tobias said as we spooned sleepily after making love again.
"What did he say to that?" I turned backwards enough to look at him.
"He gave me a weird look and I just shrugged like I had no idea what was going on. I told him I sent him the results and the recording so he could see for himself," he said with a grin.
I rolled over to face him and wrapped an arm around his waist, "We have to figure out how we need this to go. The next three weeks are going to be difficult enough without someone finding out about us the wrong way. And it's confusing me when you're supposed to be Four and Tobias comes out and it's both of you at once in public."
He laughed and kissed me, "Confusion works. I mean, Four did reject you and now he's showing interest and that should confuse you. But seriously if any more guys come forward making comments like Zeke did I may have to start hurting people. I am not dealing with that well." He brushed a lock of hair off my face gently, "just keep playing along. You're not supposed to know what's in my head."
"Speaking of not knowing what's going on; we still need to figure out why we're really doing these teams. What does this mean for Erudite? Do you have any idea how we can find out that information."
He didn't say anything for a little bit, then pulled away from me rolling out of bed and gathering his clothes, "Whoa, what's wrong?"
He rubbed the back of his neck and turned to look at me. "I have to tell you something and I don't know how you're going to take it."