[tris]

[formicine]

Yesterday when she'd found out he was gone, and the night before -- maybe for weeks really, when Blue had thought about Gansey and the probability that he wasn't going to wake up -- she had felt a strange sort of nothing. Where before she'd sat in what was Adam's bedroom (now, soon, it would be something else to someone else) with Copper and the rats, crying and trying desperately to grapple with being the last one still in Hywel, now there's a stillness that doesn't bring tears. She goes to work, and gets through the day, and finishes going through some of the things she has yet to do.

Maybe it was that she'd grieved Gansey then, a little, along with the rest of them. Like somehow, she'd known, or they couldn't all be separated. Some part of her had been able to cry about Noah better then, too, she knows.

But it's not the whole of it. The empty resignation would be all right, maybe, but she feels like something's biding its time. When she gets up in the morning, it feels like she's wrapped in cotton balls, like there's a thick layer between her and everything else, slightly unable to touch anything. It's not the first time, definitely not in the last couple of weeks, but as she goes through the day it starts to curdle, starts to twist.

That's how she finds herself knocking at Tris's door, as the sun draws long shadows out: half too-still and half burning at the edges. Maybe Tris isn't home, or she won't want to do anything unplanned, but Blue thinks she'll get it.

Comments

[priordivergence]

I feel groggy when I hear a knocking at my door. It's yet another night that I haven't slept well. There are too many old nightmares and too few confidantes to go to, no friends in the bedroom across the hall and no one in my bed. I used to believe that I was made for surviving alone but as my friends and allies dwindle, I don't think that's so true anymore. Rubbing my eyes, I pull the door open and I'm only half-surprised that it's Blue.

Something in her eyes looks hollowed out and burning at the same time, like something is trying to consume her from the inside. I wonder if she sees it in my eyes too.

"Hey," I say, not sure where to begin.

[formicine]

"Hey," Blue says, automatically in response. She isn't sure she should have come, isn't sure she should have bothered Tris, but somehow she's also positive Tris will understand. There's something in her eyes that mirrors, that holds the same lonely frustration and exhaustion with the world that Blue's been feeling.

She can feel herself almost fidgeting. "This is out of nowhere, I'm sorry." It's not, really -- it feels like it's been waiting to happen forever. "Would you ...want to go on a run?"

[priordivergence]

"Let me get my running clothes on," I say. It's probably rude not to ask, not to even bother with basic greetings but something is so clearly off in Blue and in me that I don't bother. "Do you want coffee?" Does she want to talk about it? The invitation is there but I don't think she'll act on it.

I shift in place and then step back to let Blue in for coffee or just to sit while I dress. Whichever one she needs. There's a bruise on my shin that hasn't quite gone away. Moving helps.

[formicine]

That's a definitive yes, then, and Blue can feel at least a tiny bit of tension relax, whatever tiny part of all that she's feeling had to do with feeling incomprehensibly rude and weird showing up at Tris' door. The anxiety replaces itself neatly with that same unsatisfied, restless urge. If there was a fight club tonight, she'd have gone into it bare-knuckled, an urge she also thinks Tris can understand.

This is probably safer, really, no matter how high up they get. She at least has to keep her head together a little, because if she doesn't she could really hurt herself, and the idea of racing each other, scrabbling over asphalt, not goddamn mired in thought -- it sounds good.

"Coffee would be good, yeah," she says, following Tris in. It can't make her more crawly than she is. She can feel a whole lot of things right on the tip of her tongue, but like everything else they don't quite want to spill over. Or she can't let them. Something like that.

[priordivergence]

I nod and go over to start a pot, waiting until I hear the unmistakable sizzle of coffee as it drips. Then I go into my bedroom to root out something to wear, not bothering to close the door as I change into a sports bra and t-shirt, running pants with padding sewn into the knees. Blue looks like she's in the mood to take a risk and I'll dress accordingly.

"If you want to talk about it, I'll listen," I say, when I finally do come out. "Or you can have coffee." Her call.

[formicine]

It's nice, the lack of self consciousness they've developed around each other -- maybe it shouldn't be surprising, after two years in each other's space, training and hanging out and having to trust each other -- but it still is, a little. And a little novel. If Blue wasn't so miserable and circumstances weren't, for both of them, what they are, she might have surreptitiously snuck a glance, but it's far from anything at all on her mind. But it helps, anyway, that sort of home-like casualness.

Tris dresses for a hard sort of route, and Blue is quietly glad that she understands where her head's at.

"I..." Blue turns what she wants over in her mind. She's pretty sure if she talks about it she's going to start crying, which sounds terrible. What she wants is to run until she has the wind taken out of her, to hit something, to think about anything else. "I probably want to talk," she says as measuredly as she can manage, "but not right now, if that's okay?"

She adds, a little belatedly, "Do you want to talk?" Tris had looked just as miserable -- she's been through a lot.

[priordivergence]

"Probably should talk," I say. "But want to? Not really." I come out, pulling a tank top over my head before going toward the cabinets to take out mugs from the one above the sink and then rabbit food from the cabinet beside it. Élan, at least, seems to be taking this whole mess in stride. Good for her. Someone needs to.

"It's more of the same for me."

I can still remember Thomas sitting on that couch with me after the city lost Isabelle. I'd confessed to him at the time that it felt as if I'd run out of grief, like I was too drained to mourn her after mourning so many others.

Now here I am again, missing Thomas. Missing Athos. And my grief is too tired, too numb.

[formicine]

"Hit the nail on the head," Blue says, and manages a curl of a smile, tired as it is, at Elan and her soft ears. As crowded as her apartment now is, she's glad she has Copper and Persephone and the rats to take care of. It keeps her from getting too irrational about things.

"Jesus," she says, pushing herself off the counter. "You're going to run out of skin at this rate." It's sort of a horrible quip to make, she thinks after saying it, classic not-nice Blue, and she makes a face. "I'm sorry. It's..."

She shrugs helplessly. "That for me, too." She glances up at Tris.

[priordivergence]

At the same time Blue apologizes, I laugh. It's not a happy sound, all harsh-edged, but it feels better than nodding soberly. "I'm beginning to think I never should have started," I say. My body is a map of grief and loss now. I can't look in the mirror without being reminded. Once upon a time, that used to comfort me.

But I've never felt as personally betrayed by a loss as this one now.

"I'm tired," I say. Tired of feeling, of thinking, of losing.

[formicine]

"I'm starting to think I should get one, so here we both are." Blue hadn't even really formed the feeling into a full thought; it's something that's been on a low simmer, like everything else, since January, or at least since February. When it comes out of her mouth she's almost startled by it: it sounds a little more serious about it than she thought she was. But it feels like no one can see how much this hurts, how much it all meant: Henrietta and the Raven Boys, Ronan and Adam, Noah, Gansey and who he was, who they all were in the weird pre-mapped story of her life and even when that map went totally off the page. Like no one would have any idea, and she doesn't have words for it. A tattoo would at least etch it where it was permanent. Maybe it's a stupid reason to do that. Maybe it's the only reason anyone ever gets something permanent: a proof of something.

She doesn't know.

She's tired too, in a way that's beyond words, but she's not sure exactly in what way Tris means. "Would you rather we just stay in?" Blue still feels like doing something stupid, but she can do it later; she doesn't want to inflict her bad decisions on Tris if she's not up to it.

[priordivergence]

My smile is tired but it's there. "That's how it starts." When I first Chose Dauntless, I hadn't really been able to imagine myself getting a tattoo. Then I'd gotten my first and my mother hadn't disapproved, so I'd gotten the others. Then I came to Darrow and now my body is a map. So little about this city feels permanent. I think, though it's morbid, that's why I get tattoos the way I do. It means something happened and that it was real.

I think about it, shifting slightly in place so that I can again feel the throb of the bruise in my shin. Logic tells me I should take the offer. The part of me that hurts and that wants to translate it to physical instead of emotional pain says to ignore that.

"I'm still good for a run if you are."

[formicine]

"Can you imagine me covered in ink?" Blue smiles a little. She thinks that she could, sometimes. Maybe not all for the same reason Tris gets them, though she does think she might give some thought to what the Raven Boys could leave lasting on her skin. A little Aglionby raven, like the sweater Gansey had been wearing when she'd first seen his ghost? God, 17 year old her would have hated the idea.

But she thinks sometimes her thoughts, her longings are sometimes all but mapped on her too. Tropical summers and strange birds or dolphins that she'll never see because Darrow has her fenced in: she can imagine them bursting from her like a garden sometimes, like it's impossible that no one can see all the want for more stretching from her chest.

Even now, saying it out loud, Blue stretches her hands out. And then she thinks of how Gansey would give her such a fond, understanding, believing smile if she was saying this to him, and the unfairness of it all curls into something burning and ashen.

"I'm good for it," she agrees, stubborn. "One I have to think about."

[priordivergence]

I look at Blue's arms, her neck, the backs of her hands and then I nod. "I can see it." Blue, it seems to me, is exactly the kind of person whose tattoos would be a form of honesty, the way mine are. Maybe the marks aren't literal, especially to someone who doesn't know my story, but every tattoo that I have relates to an event, a person. Blue seems like the kind of person to be open in that way.

I think she'd be beautiful with tattoos. Fierce. Tough as nails.

"Then let's finish our coffee." I'm already down to the last quarter of my mug as it is, mentally cataloguing the bottles of water in my fridge. "And then we can outrun everything."

It's a nice thought, at least.

[formicine]

Tris sweeps a glance over her as though she can see the art that Blue's imagining, assessing and taking in, and Blue can feel her cheeks heat a little, taking a long gulp of her coffee. The way she is around Tris is a little more easily unspoken than she is with anyone else, and yet sometimes she finds herself lost for what Tris thinks about her. But they've been friends nearly since Blue got here, since that horrible ashen Darrow, and she can be raw and unpretty and off center around her.

She curves a smile. "Sounds good." That reminds her of that city, too, when losing everything she loved was just a sort of demon she had to fight.