A/N- I don't own the Divergent characters. Rights go to Veronica Roth.
November 1st
Four's house is filled with loud music and the fumes of fresh paint. I find him in the living room— which is covered in dust sheets and splattered paint—coating the red wall with a blank white colour. There are little white droplets and smudges on his face and bare chest, the muscles in his arms and back standing to attention when he pushes the paint roller firmly against the wall. "Decorating?" I shout over the loud music.
His head whips around, relaxing when he sees it's me. He smiles tightly, picking up a rag from the floor to wipe his hands on before turning the music off, "I didn't hear you come in," he says sounding subdued, "but yes, I've always hated this stupid red colour." He boots a paint tray out of his way in temper as he picks up the roller again, the spongey noise of paint adhering and the squeak of the roller filling the room.
"I thought red was Sarah's favourite colour? I'm surprised she's letting you paint over it."
"She doesn't live here anymore so she doesn't get a say in what colour I paint the walls," he mutters sharply. His skin looks damp with exertion, an angry blush colouring him.
"Has she moved out?" I ask hesitantly, his response is only a slight grumble and the nod of his head. "Did her and your dad split up?"
"No. They both moved out." He's not at all open for discussion, and I get the feeling that I've done something wrong. My brows furrow and I bite back a remark, walking out of the claustrophobic room. A couple of minutes later, he sheepishly makes his way into the kitchen where I'm standing, leaning against the counter next to me. He mumbles some form of apology for his bad attitude, and I'm sure I just roll my eyes in response. After another few moments of us staring at the falling leaves outside the back window, he says he's "sorry" again, clearer and more sincere this time. I can see his jaw clench as he grits his teeth with annoyance, clearly bothered by something.
"Care to explain?" I nudge him gently with my shoulder. He chews on the inside of his cheek, refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead, his whole body stiff and terse and knotted. I run my hand up his back, moving over the rungs in his spine and the bumps of definition. I massage the back of his neck and shoulders with one hand, my other still holding my glass of water. He smiles appreciatively, loosening up under my touch.
"They moved to Washington," he tells me with a sigh, "Marcus said that he's always wanted to live there and only really stayed in Chicago because of me. As if it was a hardship to do that. Anyway, he left me the house. He just gave it to me, for free, and said that since it was my mother's 'dream house' it's what she would have wanted. It was in their will, apparently I was going to get it sooner or later."
"Is it what you want?" I ask quietly, analysing his age-old 'Four' expression that barely ever gives anything away.
"I'm glad to finally be living on my own. But it's strange, being here…without a family."
"At least you don't have to save up for you own place now. I mean, it's a pretty generous gift Four," I laugh mirthlessly, but he continues to stare into the distance. I end up following him back into the living room when he walks away, watching him as he determinedly covers up the dark cherry red colour that he hates so much.
After a few moments of letting off some steam, he stops what he's doing to pick up his discarded shirt from the couch and throw it at me. "Have you got a steady hand?" He quizzes.
"I suppose, why?"
"You can help me gloss over the skirting boards." I put his paint-splattered shirt over my own, and sit next to him on the floor. Side by side, we run paintbrushes over the existing dingy dull cream colour. I like this, making something new and clean, it's satisfying. "Do you ever think about it?" He asks abruptly, breaking me out of my reverie of concentration.
"Think about what?" I say, skeptically. He doesn't answer, instead giving me a look that tells me everything I need to know. The night that we slept together. The night that we never talk about. The one that we buried but never forgot. My mouth turns into a small 'o' and I bite my lip in attempts of fighting the redness in my cheeks.
"Sometimes," I murmur, refusing to look at him. The bristles on our paintbrushes touch occasionally, as do our arms, sending little jolts of electricity through me and causing goosebumps to grow across my skin.
"Do you think it was a mistake?"
"No." It wasn't. We just shouldn't have done it so soon. But I don't regret it, because there's a fear that if we hadn't of, we wouldn't be where we are right now. It changed the dynamic between us, complicating our friendship, but for the better. However, I'm afraid. Afraid that he doesn't think the same way, afraid that he sees me as a younger sister or a play-thing at best. And I think about it all the time, after every spoken word, every glance, every touch. But now? Now it's time to move on. Which is why I ask, "If you ever met someone, would you pursue it?"
He breaks away from the wall, leaning back on his heals and wiping the back of his hand across his brow, only serving to smudge more paint across his face. "You mean, if I met a girl?" I nod my head. "No," he says simply, picking his brush back up.
"No?"
"No," he confirms, as if it's easy, as if it's uncomplicated. Something overcomes me. Giddiness, realisation, I can't quite put my finger on it.
"What does that mean for us?" What are we? There's an abundant amount of questions I want to ask him. The conversation being awkward and clipped and quite frankly, long overdue. Right now, he's giving me an opportunity to talk about us, and I need to take it. I can't carry on being 'just friends' when it's clearly not what I want. I need more. I need all of him.
"I want us to be exclusive," he shrugs, "I'm sorry if I'm not any good at this. I don't like the formalities of going on dates and sending each other flowers and love notes. But I know that I want you, which is good enough for me."
"It's good enough for me too," I say quietly, a small shy smile etching its way onto my face. I can see him glancing at me, but I continue to act oblivious, clumsily painting with shaky hands. He leans over, kissing the top of my head as he stands up, brushing the dust from his jeans and stretching his back out. "But that doesn't mean that it should be just about that either."
"Of course it's not," he laughs a little. This vexes me, partially because I'm not the most confident person and talking about things like this makes me want to curl up or turn into flames from the inside to out. When I pointedly ask him why on earth he's laughing, he mutters, "you have no idea what you do to me, do you?"
I stare up at him from where I'm sat on the floor, wide-eyed and completely enraptured by him towering above me. I think my stare is an answer in itself. I do to him exactly what he does to me. Over and over again. I grin inwardly, standing up to brush a thumb across his cheekbone. "You've got paint all over your face."
That evening, I walk home looking pleased and smug. I blow the air out of my mouth, watching it turn to a visible cloud of mist in the cold, and kick the crunching leaves with my boot. My shoulders stand a little higher, my back a little straighter, and I don't look so defeated. Granted, Four and I's relationship has been more than an average friendship for a while now. We've received various stares and comments from friends, and anyone who didn't know us would presume that we were steady. But now it's confirmed. Now we know what we want from each other, and that makes everything so much easier, although it's difficult to talk about feelings. Feelings, even the word makes me cringe. Some girls would probably be disappointed, not being spoiled or taken out to fancy dinners and events. But not I. What Four and I have is real, and I would never give it away in hopes of getting someone more outgoing or generic. We both have our faults and flaws, but in my eyes that only makes him more perfect. When I approach my house, I see a black saloon car pulled up outside my house, the same one that's been here every so often over the past couple of weeks. There's a cloud blowing out of the exhaust, the engine rumbling, the break lights danger red. All of it is familiar, but not the person who drives it. All of my attempts of getting a look at the driver have so far failed. And it happens again, when I edge closer in hopes of seeing the mystery reflection in the wing mirror, the car speeds off. Speeds off to the point where tire tracks are made and dirt is flung in my direction. I stand there for a moment, face scrunched, thoughts turning. Of course, there's something strange about the whole thing, but what can I do about it?
Nothing. So I make my way into the house, shutting the door behind me and silently wishing that we had a couple of bolts instead of the one flimsy lock. Tonight I make an extra effort to check that all the windows are shut and locked, and check that there's no way into the back garden or whether someone could crawl through the unused cat flap or not. Stupid, I know. But I'm dreading the Masked Mystery Villain making another appearance in his blacked out vehicle.
I strip my clothing before crawling under the cool soft sheets, too tired to even get ready for bed properly. I slip my phone underneath my pillow, which is probably over-vigilant of me but I can't shake the terrible feeling of worry and dread. So I lay paralysed, hoping my insomnia will fade away so I can get a decent night's sleep.
I see the figure come towards me, enclosing me in its darkness. I feel like I'm falling, going down down down into an abyss of nothingness. The darkness chokes me, it's snake-like hand clenching round my throat. I'm trapped and suffocated and can't breath and can't move-
I hear a crash.
I spring up from my bed, my white sheets wrapped around my limbs, strangling them. I remain silent, the sound of my heavy pants echoing through the still bedroom. The house is so quiet in the dead of night, you could hear a pin drop. But I didn't hear a pin, I heard a crash. I'm sure of it. Am I? My skin drips with cold sweat, my face burning with heat. I'm home alone, there's no one else in the house except for myself…at least I hope. Still shaken from my nightmare, I continue to stay sat frozen, unable to make my next move. Normally after a nightmare, I would perhaps lay back down and wait hours for sleep to take me again. I would pick up a book and fall asleep reading it, or read it instead of sleep, to tide me through the darkness. But tonight I've had enough. I'm tired, I'm exhausted, and I just want to sleep. That's all I want. To be able to escape into a dream where there are no terrors, no demons, and where I have forgotten it by the time I wake up. Not to mention the fear of earlier, be it unreasonable or not. My bottom lip starts to wobble and I feel myself letting go of reality, letting the fear overpower me.
'And if you're awake at 4am, you are either in love or lonely, and I don't know which one is worse.' I don't know which is worse. I truly don't.
I don't know why I pick up the phone and call him. Perhaps it's out of sheer desperation. Or perhaps it's because I know he already has an inkling about my tiredness and sleepless nights, he's even pointed it out. I don't care anymore. The phone nearly slips out of my hand due to the slickness of my palms, my shuddering breaths causing a fuzzy breeze like noise.
"Tris?" Four answers, his voice mumbling and thick with sleep.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" My voice is quiet and distant and shaken. I don't ask in the form of a question, because I already know the answer. I knew I woke him. I did it on purpose.
"What's wrong?"
"I-I shouldn't have called you, I'm sorry."
"No I'm glad you called," he mumbles again, and I can hear the creak of his bed as he turns around, "but tell me what's wrong."
"It's silly really," my voice is still choked up and it's a struggle for me to even get the words out, "I woke up and I thought I heard someone downstairs," I hear him sigh deeply, a knowing sigh.
"If I come round to your house, will you be okay going downstairs and letting me in?"
"There's a spare key under the blue plant pot."
So he tells me that he's coming right away, and I lay in bed waiting for him, stiff as a board. I want to cry at how silly and weak I'm being, how hopeless I feel. I'm weary and shaken up and alone. Very alone.
I hear a car pull up in the driveway, the engine clicking off and the doors opening and clunking shut. The scrape of the terracotta plant pot slices through the nighttime silence, I can hear it through the thin glass of my window. When Four makes his way inside, he shuffles about downstairs for a short while before coming up to join me. When he's in my room, I stare at the ceiling, riddled with mortification and simply unable to look at him. He toes his shoes off, shucking his jacket and slinging it onto my coat hook.
"Well, there's no signs of any break-ins," he says. But I keep my fixation on the ceiling. He pulls the covers away and tells me to "move over," so I slide and wiggle to the other end of the bed, making room for him. He climbs in, and already the weight of his body denting the mattress and making it dip feels reassuring. He lays towards the middle of the bed, facing me, hesitantly reaching up a hand to wipe at my forehead, moving my hair away and feeling how flushed and clammy my skin is. "What was your nightmare about?" he whispers. He knows. He knows that's the reason I called him. I'm like a child, running into their parents room at night when they dream about monsters under the bed. Although, my monsters are very much human, and come out to play instead of hiding in darkness. I turn my head, my eyes slowly scanning every inch of him. I look at his crumpled black pyjama t-shirt, the pillow crease still on his left cheek, the way his hair is tousled and soft and messy. He pulls me towards him, so that my head is pressed against his chest and I can hear the steady beat of his heart. His arms encircle me, my own personal safety net. His chest is hard and broad and flat, but for some reason more comforting than a pillow could ever be.
"I get them a lot," I mutter, fisting my hand in his shirt, a childlike gesture.
"Sleep, I'll fight them off for you," our legs inosculate, fitting together like jigsaw pieces.
"With what?" I smile.
"My bare hands."
"Thank you for doing this for me," I say after while, when I feel drowsy and my eyes sting with promised tiredness.
"I'd do anything for you," he whispers softly as my head fits snugly under his chin. Anything. I smile at the word.
I can't give credit for the quote since I just came across it on the internet and have no idea who said it.
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