The great snippet migration from Tumblr continues.
He would say he was a night owl, but there is something in h that relishes seeing both the start and end of a day. Sunsets he can see from the hall outside the control room and he watches them everyday moving window by window as the earth rotates his perspective. But sunrises he has to watch from the roof or the east hall both just outside of his tether's range. It weighs on him almost as much as living on stolen glances through rough lenses as she lives without him, without explanation.
Some cameras are so scratched that its more shadow puppets than video feed. While his shift is three hours over, it means he can watch what ever feed he wants and he's been stewing over the training room for an hour. She shows up everyday dressed in black with her bag over her shoulder. She started small, bagged in draping shirts nervously disappearing behind her bag. But as the weeks pass and she gets stronger, she becomes bigger than garments and bolder than shyness. She claims the spaces around her with her fiery presence. But he's not the only one watching, he is the only one just watching. When she cuts her hair up to her chin in an asymmetrical bob, he's stuck watching them move in like hungry predators, only he's far more helpless than she is.
His body hurts to be curled so twisted on the hot vinyl of someone's couch. The crick in his neck and the ache of his back compete with the stone bruised throb of his feet for his attention. All that's before the inflammation of his handover comes overbearing and with fleeting memories. Lauren is plastered to one side of him, arms snaked around his middle, Rafael to the other with his legs draped across his own. He groaned in embarrassment, if this was anything like the last time, pictures of him dancing would already be making the rounds between the kids, his coworkers. He retched thinking of some incriminating grind between him and some girl being put in front of Tris. Would she accept just alcohol or would he have to admit to the peace serum too?
Purple bruises matching his hands were quickly spreading from the initial red on her shoulders. His eyes had been black against the whites instantly pushing her into recollections of Jeanine's torture. The way he slammed her into the mattress three times and cursed with each, she was sure he'd reach for her neck. But all he did was scream, "Damn it, Steven! Run!"
Eyes from some other place, some other time searched her crinkling face until his jaw slackened and the blues started to peel out from his pupils. Then he started to shake, releasing her to cry in her panic while he retreated behind the bathroom door. She timidly approached, wishing she wasn't in a tank top.