to_survive | (no subject)

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Today's workout had been a tough one, but Bellamy's starting to enjoy it, especially with Sassy's classes moving just beyond comfortable. He has quite a few tender spots on his outer thighs forming, and a bruise on his arm Clarke will probably fuss over, but he feels good. It's something to do, a way to feel like the life he'd known before Darrow isn't completely slipping away.

And if, for whatever reason, they find themselves back in their world, he won't be completely useless.

The weather is comfortable, cool in the shade and warm in the sun, much more preferable to the winter they finally seem to be coming out of. With his gym bag slung over one shoulder and hair still damp with sweat, Bellamy enjoys the moment as he waits outside the gym doors. He considers going over to Raven's later to check up on her and wonders about dinner with Clarke, all things that have become oddly normal and even domestic.

If only Octavia could be here to share it with him.

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"I'm gonna start charging you for my time," he tells her, pulling his bag higher up on his shoulder. "Especially when I'm hungry after a workout. My time and stomach are precious, Tris."

"I'll go into the computer and cancel your membership," I say, wagging a finger at him like it's really a threat. "But if you're really that distraught, I guess I could just treat you. There's a hot dog cart not far from here."

"I have no shame in telling on you to Shevaun," he threatens right back. It's mostly an empty threat; Shevaun is just as scary as she is personable, and there are days Bellamy isn't sure whether he likes her or fears her more.

"Hot dog cart does sound good. So does you treating."

I laugh and ball up my hands into fists as if I'd actually hit him like this. "Come on, I'll buy you a real lunch. Call it a bribe." In the Factions, there was no 'treating' a friend to lunch. Either families took turns cooking or their factions had commissaries like Dauntless had. Presumably Dauntless families had taken turns cooking, at least.

Maybe they'd picked who cooked that night by throwing knives at a board.

"I'll take that bribe," Bellamy says with no shame whatsoever. He doesn't have a job and doesn't really have need for one with what little he lives off of, but that doesn't mean he'll turn down an offer when presented with one.

He shifts his bag from one shoulder to the next, and looks at Tris expectantly. "Lead the way."

Giving him a playful half-bow, I show Bellamny a few shops down the block to a sandwich shop that Four likes to take me often. The food is good and the place isn't so crowded, all blonde wooden tables and the constant aroma of freshly-made bread. I wonder if Bellamy will find this place as comforting as I do.

"Order at the counter."

Bellamy resists the urge to reach out and ruffle Tris' hair as they take off. He's relatively sure she'd karate chop his hand away if he tried something so patronizing, but the urge is often there; she's small and delicate-looking, but fierce where it counts, and there are half moments when his mind tricks him into thinking she fills the space Octavia should have.

Ultimately, it just makes his heart ache more.

"I will never get over how much of everything there is," he says to Tris once they're inside. He hasn't quite stepped up to the counter yet but is instead staring at the menu above it. "And the fact that most of it exists at all."

I catch a tangle in his expression, like he's stopping himself from making some kind of joke and I flash him a returning smile before gesturing him ahead of me. "I already know what I want," I explain. The cheese sandwich and tomato soup is the simplest option on the menu but it's good cheese, good bread, good vegetables and all of its simplicity makes it obvious. It also makes it homey, comforting.

"I know how that feels," I say, shaking my head. "We had...enough but the other factions always thought everyone else had more that they weren't sharing. Especially my birth faction."

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