Chapter Three: Under My Skin
Tobias
I wake with a weight on my chest – a familiar, comfortable one. I open my eyes to a mass of blonde hair.
Tris.
I push the strands away so I can see her face. Her chin is just a couple of inches above my new tattoo, and I can feel the soft pulse of healing skin with each of her breaths.
I can only imagine how the outside world would judge me for it, label me an idiot - too in love to realize that nothing lasts forever, too blind to see the consequences of a permanent mark of a girlfriend. Nobody else could understand what it is between us.
She's sleeping deeply, wearing nothing but one of my old shirts. Her bare legs tangled with mine, leaving me painfully aware just how little clothing lies between us.
Her fear of intimacy didn't disappear overnight, but we faced it together.
We had sex for the first time soon after her initiation.
The love was already there, but the physical act did change things between us. Deepened the connection, I guess. Something about having someone be completely bare to you, being connected with that person in every way physically possible.
She was terrified, but somehow just as bold as I've ever seen her. Fearless. Pulling my face down so she could kiss me, wrapping her legs around my waist, holding me impossibly closer.
"I love you," she whispered, panting.
"I love you."
Tris sighs in her sleep and I smile. I never get to look at her for this long without her noticing. I wrap a long lock of her hair around my finger, and the silken strands still brush against my stomach. I pull the rest back so it fans behind her on the bed. The sleeves of my old shirt have ridden up to display her pale, slender arms. I can just barely see the outline of the tattoo on her shoulder.
I trace my thumb across the soft skin of her temple. Her features are delicate, almost innocent - completely masking the warrior that lies beneath. Her ears are small and the lobes are red from where she recently had them pierced. The small silver studs bring out the grey in her eyes.
I kiss her temple and she stirs, just for a moment, cuddling closer to me.
I see something dark on the hidden skin behind her ear. I sit up to look closer.
4
It's a simple, small, completely healed tattoo. Bold and delicate at the same time.
My chest tightens, and my breath comes out in a hitch. It's nothing more or less than I did, but it's still so painfully intimate I don't even know what to feel. The possessive side of me is overjoyed. She has a permanent mark of me. My mark, my name will be on her forever.
Her eyes are open now, and she has a small smile on her face.
I kiss her roughly and she laughs.
"So you like it then?"
"When did you do this?" I ask, tracing the number with my fingertip.
She strokes the side my face with her hand.
"A month ago." She replies, grinning. "I never meant to steal your surprise."
I stifle a laugh.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She looks thoughtful for a moment.
"I don't know if it makes sense. It is you, but I didn't get it for you. I got it for me. I feel like all of my tattoos are reminders."
She sits up suddenly, throwing a leg over my waist to straddle me. With a playful smirk she grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head, leaving her completely naked before me.
Before I can register the surprise, or growing arousal - she takes my hand and holds it to the birds on her collarbone.
"The ravens are reminders of my family." She moves my hands to her shoulders. "My past in Abnegation and my present in Dauntless."
I touch her new tattoo on my own, my fingers fisting into the hair just beyond.
"So this is a reminder of me?" I ask.
She nods, biting her lip, her legs moving on their own.
"Yes but it's also a reminder of what's happened to us ... what you've done ... what you mean to me."
I grip her waist and roll so she's underneath me.
"What exactly do I mean?"
"Everything. You mean everything."
Edited 1/1/2021