[Greytris AU]

[priordivergence]

I'm standing there in my kitchen, trying to remind Grey of the drinks we've left cooling on the counter, but I can't quite fish out the words as he reaches up and touches my jaw. For long, painful seconds, all I can think of is the last person who cradled me like this, who watched my face with quiet understanding. I miss Tobias. I miss Christina and Uriah and knowing who I was. Maybe it had been an illusion of understanding, but it had been something.

I stare at Grey now, feeling like I'm on the precipice of something dangerous.

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[priordivergence]

My whole body jerks, as if I've been hit with an electric shock. More than ever, I'm aware of the last time I was kissed, by how very few people I've kissed, and the fear of intimacy that lived in my landscape.

"Grey?" I ask, aware of the creeping flush on my cheeks.

[silenttrainbaby]

Still framing her jaw with his fingers, Grey pulls back just enough to look into her eyes again. Is she all right?

[priordivergence]

I stand there, bruised and aching and so confused. I don't think he's the kind of person to expect me to thank him that way. Does he think that's what I expect? The questions make my head spin.

"Why did you kiss me?"

[silenttrainbaby]

Why? No, not because Grey thought she owed him. Far from.

Instead, he kissed her because he wanted to. Because her mouth seems soft and she's kind.

He smiles just a little with the slightest shrug. He leans in to do it again.

[priordivergence]

I wouldn't have expected such a soft kiss to come from someone as contained and powerful as Grey, but it is. It's soft and welcoming and makes my stomach do a little flip. It makes me kiss back.

[silenttrainbaby]

Stepping closer, Grey's hands land on Tris's hips, pulling her against him, gentle still. He explores her mouth, then, the new taste of it, the feel of it. He feels a heat bloom in his belly, feels how soft she is in places against him.

[priordivergence]

There's so little softness left in me after Dauntless initiation that I'm amazed Grey can find any. Even as I feel myself half-sitting, half-leaning on the arm of my couch, pulling him closer, my brain is racing and reminding me that I've never been with anyone. That I've only kissed one person.

[silenttrainbaby]

There is softness in everyone. Even in Grey, the one who spent his life on the train being bred to kill.

All he knows he learned on the train. He didn't learn about touching women though, not concretely. Only words spoken by Edgar in the dark of night on the train. Words like "tits," and "twat" and other abstract concepts.

He rests his foreehead against hers, feeling a heat in his gut, a tingling between his legs.

[priordivergence]

I try and cant my hips back but I'm pressed flushed against my own couch and aware of what I make Grey feel. Heat is flushed across my skin and through my stomach, but it's soured with nervousness. Uncertainty.

I don't know if I want this, but I can't say that I don't.

[silenttrainbaby]

The idea of wanting something is as foreign to Grey as bread was when he first arrived in the city.

Kissing her forehead, he cards fingers through her short hair, then along the column of her neck.

Just this feels almost decadent.

[priordivergence]

His mouth off mine, I finally remember how to speak. "I've never..." I start, my stomach squeezing.

He must think I'm such a child.

[silenttrainbaby]

They're both innocent in their own ways. Anything Grey knows he learned from Gilliam and Edgar, or mutual fumbling. There were far too many women on the train. Pulling back just a little, he lets their eyes meet again.

He's never either.

His hand wanders lower, over her shirt, along the swell of a breast.

[priordivergence]

I feel the touches rising up along my skin, leaving trails of of heat that snake along the meager curves of my body. The want bubbles up higher in me, but not high enough to smother the nervousness.

Am I ever going to be certain about this?

"Do you really want to?"

[silenttrainbaby]

Her uncertainty is contagious. It makes Grey pull back. He wants to, yes, but it isn't as if he has to.

[priordivergence]

It still fizzles in my stomach. Instinct tells me to chase back into his arms, to feel his warmth.

"I've only ever kissed one other person," I explain quietly. "And we hadn't ever...We had chances but the time just wasn't right and I..."

[silenttrainbaby]

There was no such thing as a right time on the train.

Grey touches Tris's chin, her cheek. He is, still, a very good listener.

[priordivergence]

I don't know how to say it, how to negotiate between the thoughts racing my brain and the signals coursing just under my skin.

So many times, Tobias and I had come close and then pulled back from uncertainty, from grief. There's nothing holding me back now except myself.

I'm not afraid of Grey. I trust him. I don't trust myself.

And a new thought worries me. "I don't have any protection either..."

[silenttrainbaby]

Protection?

That's something Grey hasn't thought anything about. Ever.

Protection against what? His brows furrow in question.

[priordivergence]

"To prevent..." I gesture vaguely at my stomach before grabbing a hold of myself. I'm a grown adult. I've broken bones and ended life. I'm on the verge of having sex with Grey and I'm going to be brave. Unashamed.

"To prevent pregnancy," I finish, refusing to let my voice shake.

[silenttrainbaby]

Pregnancy.

Being a mother - Tanya to Timmy: that's Grey's reference.

How does one prevent that? Why would one want to?

Grey covers her belly with his hand, unsure of what else to do.

[priordivergence]

The next question surprises me. "...do you still want this?" When we're robbed of spontaneity, held back from acting immediately, will he still want me.

[silenttrainbaby]

What is not to want?

Being roobbed of spontaneity might be the best thing - any moments they had on the train were spontaneous.

The hand on Tris's belly cups her jaw again and he kisses her again.

[priordivergence]

His answer steals some of the fear out of me, lets the heat rise up in me again. Careful of my wrapped hands, I slide my arms around him.

[silenttrainbaby]

His hands slip from her jaw to her neck to along her shoulders and Grey holds her then, liking how she feels in his arms.

The quiet around them amplifies all of this, makes it seem more momentous as he tastes her.

[priordivergence]

Slowly, I straighten up so I'm not backed up against my own couch, turning us around so that he can sit on the couch. So that I can be brave and drape over him.