"Does it hurt?" Tris' fingers graze softly over my thigh, tightening a bandage to stop the bleeding. I just shake my head, not trusting my voice to speak clearly. "Tobias?" She squeezes my hand the way she normally does to bring me comfort when she is weary. A safe distance from my unstable mood.
"It's fine." I promptly shift my pants, buttoning them shyly. Even after being intimate, there is the persistent modesty of Abnegation embedded in my soul. The way Tris looks away when my cheeks flush reminds me that it is part of her too. "Come with me." My voice is raspy and deep with exhaustion. I grab my pistol from the small stand by the bed, pushing most of my weight onto my good leg when I step.
"Where are we going." She ask, eyeing me curiously.
"To teach you to shoot again." I feel her eyes on me nervously. Her bottom lip worn and cracked from a combination of her teeth and the cold. I don't offer her the choice, I press the butt of the pistol into her hand and clasp her fingers around it. Her arm sways from the weight of it, looking awkward and uncomfortable. I press my hand to her shoulder and raise her elbow with my finger tips. "Just hold it, don't think about shooting it yet." My voice is stern and muffled from the wind.
"I don't want to kill anymore." She let's her arm drop again.
"It's not your choice anymore. Look at where we are. We could have ran. I could have taken you away from here, but it's too late." I surprise her with my tone, hell, I surprise myself. All of the times I have wanted to leave her selflessness, and mine lead us here.
Her hand holds steady and the weight of the metal finds comfort in her grip. "Try aiming." I instruct, pointing off to the distance. Her eyes contort as she try's to focus. I push her arm down to lower the weapon, jogging in front of her to find a target. I manage to tie cloth to a post, it isn't much and won't train accuracy but it will do.
Her finger hesitates on the trigger, her eyes unable to focus through the tears that linger in them. We don't have time for this. "You're going to get us killed." I mutter unforgivingly.
"Excuse me?" She hisses back, the gun now more steady in her palm.
"You can't protect yourself, I'm going to get killed to save you and then what? Who will keep you alive."
Her nose wrinkles in a way that mirrors her temper, she hates being seen as helpless, a child. So I fuel her. "I guess it would be no different than training."
I shrug a bit.
"What do you mean by that." She hisses, unable to hide her disgust in my words.
"You would have never of survived training without me." I glance at my finger nails, carelessly scraping the dirt from under them.
"That is not true!" He fingers are white from her grip. She shakes her head in frustration as she eyes me. "Shut up." The words stammer out in rage and then she fires, not deliberately, but in desperation to prove her strength. My lips tug upward in admiration, I never doubted her. Never.
"Tris." I say softly, my eyebrows raising in the direction of her gun. She stands almost shocked and in disbelief that she did it. A grin of triumph crosses her face as her eyes trail to the cloth that is tattered from shots. Her smile disappears and her eyes dim as they settle on me.
"Was I-am I not, good enough for Dauntless? Did you help me?" She suddenly appears to consider the possibility she is unworthy.
"I told you what you needed to hear in this moment." My voice is rough and unforgiving of my words. She accepts my answer with an abruptness, there is no time to dispute or be angry.
"We can't go home?"
"No." I rub the bridge of my nose to relieve some of the pressure that has built behind it. She purses her lips, a trait she tends to do when she is too angry for words. Her tiny fist ball as the rage builds.
