Four/Tobias Eaton Imagines

To Have Or To Hold

There are a great many mysteries in the Dauntless complex. For a faction that prides itself on bravery, courage, not hiding behind doors when you can fight in broad daylight, there are far more secrets than the faction leaders care to let on. Whispers surround everyone, everything, and they'll never go away.

You can guess what people are hiding here, behind black-suited lies and defenses as sharp as knives, but you'll never know for certain. For one thing, no one in this entire faction has managed to piece together the fact that you and Four are dating, despite the fact that this relationship has been going on for months.

It started off as a secret, and you haven't been able to drag it out into the light ever since. When you and Four met, he was two years out of his own initiation, just starting to get a grasp for how to be a training leader for the new crop of Dauntless. You had just dashed your blood into the vessel for the bravest faction, had just thrown yourself off of the roofline to land in Dauntless once and for all.

You should have known then that Four was too great a secret for you to keep. He had looked at you like you were something worth keeping around, and you liked how it felt a little too much. When the two of you started seeking each other out, either for silent glances in training or longer conversations after hours, there was no way it would have gone anywhere else.

Soon enough, Four was calling your name like a blessing, some guarantee of safety in the midst of all this mayhem. You knew you loved him when you won your fights and saw him watching you approvingly, when you could go through your fear landscape fastest because the one thing that scared you most was thinking that what you had with Four wasn't real, and you already had to face that every day.

You graduated top of your initiation class soon enough, with both a new title and a hand holding yours. Four confessed how he felt two nights before initiation ended, praying that somewhere in all this darkness you'd be able to be his light. He didn't like being so alone, he said. You made him think that there was a world outside of hurt and challenge.

The only problem was how it all looked. You couldn't be happier with Four, and you know he feels the same way, but the facts of the matter line up differently to everyone else. If the other Dauntless knew that you and Four were seeing each other, they'd start asking questions about just when all this started, if it had any impact on your rankings. Corruption festers deep in Dauntless, but people still like to pretend otherwise. They'd jump on this in a second if it meant switching the blame away from themselves.

So, you keep it a secret. You're allowed to be Four's friend, of course, and train with him like the rest, but the moment your gaze lingers on him with the sort of softness that doesn't belong in Dauntless' cold atmosphere, people start wondering. You're certain that a few people suspect, but most of them just joke about it. Wouldn't that be something, the boy with hardly any fears and the girl who could make you think that she had none at all? If only they knew that their rumors were actually true.

The only problem with keeping this secret is that it isn't quite enough. Part of loving someone is belonging to them, being able to seek their shelter in the midst of any storm. You can talk to Four, sure, and treasure his kisses when no one else is looking, but you still want something more.

You can't help but envy the other Dauntless couples you see around the faction, the ones that get to walk with their arms slung low over the hips of their partners. These lucky ones pull their significant others close without a second thought, paying no attention to how it all looks. Or maybe they care too much, and every gesture is strictly orchestrated to give off the illusion that they've got it all. At any rate, you'd love to have that choice, to have or to hold. Anything more than the nothingness that threatens to swallow you whole.