formicine | [tris]

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[tris]

She glances up to see the SUV coming toward her in a flash of silver, and the horn blares, and then everything goes into slow, strange focus.

It's not exactly her life flashing before her eyes. There have certainly been other moments that were a little more like that in Blue's 21 years of existence. It's more like an outside-herself, extended this is going to be bad in the milliseconds of time between the horn filling her ears, the squeal of brakes, and the crunch of metal on metal.

She lays on the pavement for a moment, letting the breath back into her lungs, and then it registers that the guy is actually yelling at her, yelling at her for hitting her, and Blue scrambles up in the middle of the intersection to flick him off with both hands, screaming, "I had the right of way and it's a zebra crossing, asshole," while blood streams down her arms and soaks through her jeans. He's yelling back about having a green light. None of it makes any sense.

Then, down the street, there's another screech of wheels and a smash, and they all shut up, unsettled and not sure what's going on. The sound of car horns makes her stomach drop, unmoored as though she's gone flying again.

Blue yanks her bike free in favor of keeping moving rather than letting herself process how sick she feels. Its rear tire is hopelessly bent out of shape, like a balloon someone had just let sit. She shakes off the offers of help and people touching her. She just needs to get someplace quiet and closer and safe.

That turns out to be Tris's place. She feels stupid, but apparently bloody and walking a crushed bike is weird enough to let in the apartment, and she knocks on the door with the side of her hand and leans her forehead against it.

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She probably shouldn't have said love, Blue reflects, anxiously, only after she's said it. It's not that she doesn't mean it, but what if it's too much? Or if she doesn't mean it yet in the way she's supposed to mean it when you're talking to someone who you want to kiss and it's the wrong thing to say?

That's always the trouble, isn't it? She loves Beth, and Olive, too, but she doesn't want to curl up with them the way she does with Tris. She hadn't been to saying I love you to Ellie as a friend when they first started dating, so it hadn't ever come up until she realized she did love her. If there's a solid construction between loving someone and being in love with them, Blue isn't sure she knows where it is.

Mostly Tris looks about as vulnerable as Blue feels and she doesn't like causing that.

"I mean, me too," Blue admits. "I...really didn't want to be with anyone for a lot of being a teenager, either. You know, being told you're going to kill someone by kissing them takes a lot of the fun out of high school dating." She huffs a wry laugh. "But sometimes it just sort of ...turned into something else." She's not entirely certain it didn't turn into something else with almost all the boys, in one way or another, it's just that some of them she wanted to kiss and some of them she didn't. Or she didn't want to kiss when they did, or whatever it was.

She presses her lips together. "I'm not sure I do either, to be honest?" Blue ruffles her hair. "I mean. I know what it looks like on screen, but that's not exactly what I mean, either. I guess...wanting to kiss you is a big part of it. And ..." She catches herself almost saying more than that and gives herself a Look internally. "Sex... If you wanted to do that. But it's not just that, because if you don't ever want to, I'd still want to be with you more."

Blue frowns over what she thinks more means. "I like holding your hand," she tries, and stretches hers out, a sort of offering. It feels like it'll feel better, too, than just standing close and negotiating.

"I don't know. Everyone was trying to kill me and I still found time to date," I say. I can feel the wry crookedness of my own smile. Tobias and I hadn't formally dated by any means at all. We'd climbed into one another's worst and darkest fears and figured out our terrible secrets and that had bound us together. Thomas and I were so careful as to feel like we never got anywhere. Everyone else? It was sex. It was me being stupid and lonely. I don't want to just be stupid or lonely with Blue.

Right now, is the least lonely I've felt in a long time. Blue offers me a hand and I take it, lacing our fingers. "I like this too," I say. I think about what it might mean to be Blue's girlfriend. In some ways, it doesn't seem different. We already spend a lot of time together, physically and emotionally close, but there's something different about the thought of curling up on the couch with my friend Blue versus my girlfriend Blue. The second words put a feeling of butterflies in my stomach that make me think this is about so much more than just kissing.

"I hadn't thought about you that way before," I say. "Mostly because I don't think I'd realized I could be." I've known for a while, in Darrow, that I'm not attracted only to men and I think Blue knows that's not what I'm referring to. It's just that I had never considered what it could mean for some of my current friends, for the people that I love and could fall in love with.

"I have no idea what I'm doing but I think I do want to be with you. I'm not sure I'd realized I could do that. I wouldn't if you hadn't kissed me."

"But were they trying to kill you by dating you," Blue says, putting up a finger in faux-protest, but she's smiling.

"Well, that's one thing," Blue says, curling her fingers around Tris, and she can tell her smile is going a little soft and goofy. She's used to being practical, tough Blue and right now she feels soft and open and a little in need of care, but it doesn't feel unsafe, around Tris. They're both confused, but they're lost in the same part of the map, at least.

"I didn't really think I could be, either. First because I wasn't sure if I liked you or just thought you were cool," she laughs. "And then there was Gansey, and Ellie, and you were with Thomas for a while, and ..." she shrugs expansively. "It sort of wasn't, or it was but in the background, and then it was. I thought you didn't feel that way at all." She can tell she's flushing.

"I'm glad I kissed you, then," Blue replies softly, with a little smirk. "I don't know if we have to know what we're doing. We can figure out what we want." She tips her head. "Can I kiss you again?"

"Semantics," I say, trying to sound officious and practical. It doesn't quite work when I know my cheeks are going warm and I can't stop smiling. My heart squeezes but it's not in an uncomfortable way. It's exciting and strange, like jumping through the hole and falling into that net.

Exhilarating.

What Blue says makes sense. There had always been other things going on, other people, but through all of them Blue has been a solid presence. We've called on one another for just about everything this city has thrown at us and it's like looking through a window that was smudged and is now clean. The stuff on the other side was always there, but now I can see it.

"I'm glad you kissed me. I think you should kiss me again too."

Tris is smiling, cheeks pink, and if anything it just stokes that nervous-excited feeling in Blue, watching her own emotions played out in measure across Tris’ face. Maybe she should have expected it: half of her adventures with Tris have been a little bit dazzling and a little bit terrifying. Literally throwing herself off ledges.

This is a different sort of ledge.

Blue smiles, and leans up to kiss Tris. This time it’s less urgent, less abrupt. Softer, gently exploring.

It's strange how different it is to kiss Blue. The last few men I've kissed were all about need and the promise of satisfaction. With Sweeney, it had almost been like sparring, in an enjoyable way. This kiss feels like I'm being figured out, explored. It's all too easy to lean into it and let my eyes close. Behind my eyelids, I remember flashes of the party, dark and colorful, but it's not that kind of kiss either.

It's nice.

Blue is easy to kiss back, wanting but not demanding.

There's definitely an element of need that could be there; probably has been there, at the party, will be there almost certainly, if Blue knows herself, but right now there's no rush. After the adrenaline rush of maybe sort of not quite ending up in the hospital, and the smaller one of actually talking, it's nice and a little comforting. to just take things slow.

It's nice to feel like they have time too.

Blue can feel Tris lean in, and she presses close. One of the few advantages of her height is that kisses tend to mean she's leaning up towards her partner, and the extra contact feels good. Finding a place that doesn't hurt to put her hands, her fingers discover the little gap between shirt and waistband, and she stretches her hand out against Tris' skin and under her shirt just a little. "What about this, can I do this?" It's half a tease, half literal. There's something a little exciting about asking about everything, and something reassuring about it too.

Edited 2018-12-07 08:08 (UTC)

It's a sweet kiss and there's a lack of familiarity to it that reminds me, again, of how long it's been since the last time I had the simple pleasure of this sort of kiss. There's no rush to it because we have so much time, though that doesn't mean there's a lack of urgency. It's easy to lean in, to deepen the kiss, to want to be closer, especially when Blue's hand is warm against my skin. My heart jumps, remembering that she's in my clothes.

And then is slows, remembering she's injured. "It is," I says, pulling back and biting my lip a little. "I just want to be careful." I trace my fingertips over a sleeve, conscious of the road rash beneath.

Tris deepens the kiss in a slow, wanting way that lets something uncoil under Blue's skin, and she sighs a little when she pulls back.

"That's probably a good idea," Blue says, though the conviction isn't quite in it; right now, buzzy with adrenaline and being kissed, she isn't hurting terribly. It might not be wise, but she's alive and unhospitalized and Tris is happily kissing her back, and it all feels encouraging and warm.

She chews on the inside of her lip and smiles a little. "I'm not going to break, I promise." She glances around. "Just, we could...on the couch, or..." Or the bed, but that seems presumptuous, even if the times she's messed around in a bed haven't always led to more than kissing.

Edited 2018-12-24 03:05 (UTC)

"Or..." I agree, understanding the way she trails off. My stomach does a nervous butterfly swoop at the implications there but I determinedly push that down. This is barely beginning and, more importantly, it won't go away. We can afford to wait. I haven't been with another girl; I don't want to rush clumsily in. "Your call."

But I do want to kiss her again, pull her body flush against mine with careful hands that avoid the raw, injured places on her skin.

Blue's stomach is not bereft of butterflies. She's only ever been with one other person: the fact that it was a girl just makes the various possibilities a little more dizzyingly forward in her mind. It doesn't really matter, anyway, how many people she's been with: she's never been with Tris. The butterflies are there.

And, equally: she wants it to be good when and if and however they do.

"The bed sounds a little more comfortable," she says, but ever conscious of being transparent and unpushy, she adds, "I don't mean anything else by that."

Edited 2018-12-27 04:39 (UTC)

I lift my eyes to meet Blue's and I hope she can see both my understanding and relief. This isn't like the hookups I've had in the recent past. It's closer to the kind of thing I used to want and used to think I'd have with Tobias. Not that there's any real comparison between them, just a similar sense of wanting. Permanence.

"It would be," I say. Reaching down, I take both of her hands and intertwine our fingers, squeezing her hands. Then I step backward, tugging her along the short distance to my bed.

Tris's gaze is warm and a little relaxed, and Blue smiles, a little of the anxiety about what to do or say to make sure everything's okay draining away. It's not that she and Tris have ever had trouble getting their meaning across to each other, particularly, but she keeps expecting things to be tense, possibly because they always have been for one reason or another.

This doesn't feel tense. There's a sort of rush to all of it, a nervousness, but it's the sort of nervousness that comes before good things.

She grins when Tris tugs her back into her bedroom and closes the space to kiss her against the edge of the bed before realizing she can't just flop them both onto it dramatically, much as she might like to. There'll be time for that sort of stuff later.

Blue takes a breath and sits next to her. "Hey," she says, running a hand up along Tris' arm. "So..." She feels very stupid. More kissing, less talking. But it catches in her chest, flutters bird-like. "Do I get to call you my girlfriend, or are we not there?"

Edited 2018-12-30 07:08 (UTC)

There's a second where I consider falling backward and letting Blue collapse on top of me before remembering why we can't. I know Blue said she won't break and I believe that she won't but that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to be handled carefully, gently. No matter the angle we look at it, her day hasn't been easy, so I let her press me to the edge of the bed and then I sit down slowly, giving her plenty of space to join me, to hold one another.

Her question makes me laugh, a light giggle that hardly sounds like me, even though I'm sure Blue has made me laugh like that before.

The question of being her girlfriend seems both weighty and obvious at the same time and I second-guess myself before nodding. "I'd like to be your girlfriend."

Blue is sure she's blushing when Tris laughs, but it's a good laugh, a giggly one that she files away as wanting to cause more often, even if it's at her own expense. "I'd like that too," she says, leaning into Tris' shoulder and tucking her head down against it. Honestly, she's 20 years old, she really needs to stop being such a fluttery chaotic mess about this stuff, but her heartbeat refuses to obey. "I'd really like that."

She scoots back on the bed, carefully, and tilts her head. "C'mere?"

Edited 2019-01-01 03:06 (UTC)

Blue fits perfectly against me and I briefly rest the crown of my head on top of hers before letting her scoot away. I'm already halfway to joining her when she asks me to come over and I grin. It's easy to get comfortable, rest my head on my pillow and drape my arm across her.

"Does that mean you're my girlfriend?"

It feels nice, fitting so closely against someone, and she'd hang onto it a little longer if she didn't think, miraculously enough, it was going to be available again when she wants it.

Tris's bed is soft and the pillows smell like her, and Blue smiles at her when she sidles close. The air feels warm and buzzy between them like even the atoms of her skin are reaching for Tris's. "Yeah," she says with a little grin. "I think it does."

"I mean, if you want."

Edited 2019-01-03 04:18 (UTC)

As a child, I never had a sleepover. My only knowledge of them is from the occasional Darrow TV show and I have no idea how the real thing measures up but there's an element of it here. I feel light and easy, despite the weight of the confessions we've made, ready to kiss and laugh and relax until Blue's skin hurts a little less.

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want that," I point out, letting myself smile. "But I'm kind of new at this."

Blue grins. It's silly, of course: they're being silly and that feels as good as anything. But it's also nice to have these questions answered, to say Tris is my girlfriend in her head.

It's more than nice. It feels amazing.

"At having a girlfriend or at being one?" she asks, sort of teasing, sort of just fond, and pauses. "I mean, I'm not exactly a pro." Blue exhales a laugh. She's like the opposite of a pro girlfriend: between lack of interest, being in love with too many people, and outright being cursed to kill someone, she historically might rank as one of the worst choices in romantic interest ever. "I've dated one ...and a ...half people."

She's still not exactly sure if what she and Adam did was dating or just a small exercise in misidentifying love.

"At being your girlfriend," I say. "But also at having anyone for a girlfriend." Much less someone like Blue as my first. She's so important to me as a friend already that I don't want to screw things up romantically. The way things have been in Darrow, at this point I've slept with more people than I've loved and, maybe, I should be ashamed of that but right now, it's simply a ratio.

I could love Blue.

"My track record isn't exactly much better," I point out. "I'm...okay with learning on my feet."

"Oh," Blue realizes, and smiles, because it just really does sound wonderful. She feels silly, but it feels good, a rollercoaster climbing so slowly that it wasn't even noticably moving now cresting its hill, with all the exhilaration and relief, too, that imparts.

And a little bit of fear. Her last couple of relationships haven't exactly ended well, and both of them have said it, but she can't lose Tris. She can't screw this one up. It matters too much.

Somehow she doesn't think she will, though.

"You do have a history of being good at that," Blue says with a little smirk, and nods. "There aren't -- rules to this, you know? I want to be with you because it already felt good. Safe, you know? And -- yeah," she adds, flushing a little and grinning at herself, "maybe I want you, too, but that's too, not just. I want to figure it out with you."

Blue smiles and I feel my own face echoing her expression. Safety, affection, desire. I understand those things and now that Blue says them in connection with me, I don't know how I never realized I could find them in her too. My stomach flutters in a way I'm no longer used to and I can't help nudging forward on the bed until we're as close as we can be and still be two separate people. "I don't know what I'm doing," I say again. "But I like the idea of figuring it out with you."

I kiss her and drape a hand across her waist and decide that the only thing to do is be close to her.

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[tris]

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