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Tris' POV
I wake while the window is still cloaked in darkness. I normally don't wake up in the middle of the night- if I do, it's usually for a reason.
That's when I hear my reason.
Tobias's voice is groaning from his room in the opposite end of the hall. My eyes snap alert and I swing my legs out of bed, the cold air enveloping my legs that are bare from the shorts I wear, and my cold feet weld into the cold floor.
I pull the sleeves of my large hoodie over my hands and walk into Tobias's room. It's not really my job to protect him from bad dreams, but his moaning makes my heart wrench, and I'll never sleep with it.
My eyes adjust like they do in the Dauntless compound and I walk easily into Tobias's room. He's in a tangle of covers, tossing and turning and moaning. I reach my hands out to him and wrap them around his shoulder and upper arm- tensed and sweaty. I shake him lightly, but he won't wake up. He murmurs something frantic, and I shake harder.
"Tobias," I say as calmly as I can, "wake up." He rolls to my voice and his eyes pop open, and terror shrinks from his eyes as I come into his recognition. I pull my hands from his arm and he relaxes, his body sinking back into the bed.
His jaw is tense and he just stares at me, unable to speak. I invite myself next to him, and he scoots back, closer to the wall, and I sit on the bed, where his body's recent presence has left the sheets and blanket warm and inviting.
He's officially Abnegation, but I don't think he cares when I lay down. In fact, he even smiles a bit and slide his arm against my neck so I can use his upper arm as a pillow.
"What happened?" I ask, trying not to sound too prodding, but I can't help it.
"Just a nightmare with my father," he says quietly, "he was whipping me, and I tried to fight back, but he was too strong."
"I can promise you, you're stronger than you think," I say quietly, my eyes searching into his.
He nods, and smiles just a bit, a breathy laugh escaping him.
"Thanks," he says quietly. I nod my welcome, and his eyes glance over me as if deciding something. He smiles and presses his lips lightly to my forehead, to my nose, to my cheek- though he breaks into a smile there, his warm breath spreading out against my cheek.
A streak of emotional hunger overtakes my stomach and I feel weak. I'm supposed to be the bodyguard- but I have never felt more powerless.
My fingers flutter up to his slightly rough chin, and I direct his lips to mine.
He doesn't object, and his arm smooths up and down my sleeve. He smiles now against my lips and kisses me again. I break into my own smile and pulls back, a hunger matching mine in his eyes- a hunger very unknown and unaccepted in Abnegation.
He leans back a little onto the pillow, and I lean in closer to him.
I decide to stay here for the rest of the night, curled into his side. To protect him from the bad dreams only, of course.
I smile in the darkness where he can't see and his fingers swirl in the tips of my hair until I fall asleep.
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