Give you something good to celebrate. [Gathering; Pre-dated to 6/5/15]

[oddthatway]

Tris ought to know well enough by now that I never go back on my word, once given. Especially when it comes to something as important as celebrating her 19th birthday. (And I have no doubt her and Four will find their own ways to celebrate later, but I try not to think about that. For my own sake.) She also still doesn't know that this celebration is about far more than her almost not being a teenager anymore. I'm putting my all into this because, back home, Tris doesn't get the chance to live this long. Back in Chicago, the Tris I've left behind is resting in a morgue.

I have the living room all decked out because of the rabbit. While Tris still isn't here, I'll admit: the damn thing's cute. And at least Tris had the sense to get a pet with Dauntless colors. It makes the whole pet thing seem far less Amity.

I've worked hard, tying ribbons of various colors - vibrant, spring colors like sky blue and lavender - and balloons around every available edge and corner. Behind the couch, I've put a banner that I've painted myself, which is why the writing looks so sloppy. Again, I've used the colors of the ribbons and the balloons, to write a simple message of 'Happy birthday, old lady!'

Not that Tris is old at all. Far from it. But I can't resist a bit of teasing, even for my best friend's birthday.

On the table rests a cake I bought at one of the local bakeries, in the shape of a bird, with some berries on top. It's the kind of quaint that I think Tris will appreciate. Next to it, my gifts: a slinky, shimmery light blue dress, because one can never have too many sexy dresses, and the other, a beautifully designed knife with crows etched onto the handle of the blade. Both were hardly cheap, but for Tris, I would be willing to spend far more.

So now I'm waiting, pacing through the living room, adjusting the various decorations while keeping an eye out for Tris.

I've invited others, of course. It wouldn't do to just be the two of us. Slowly, I'm beginning to understand how much Tris' friends here mean to her. So I've invited as many people as I've been able to get a hold of. Now all I can do is wait.

Comments

[femmejosephine]

"I think it might be the first birthday party I've been to, so I guess it works that it's the first one you've celebrated," Nikita replied, chuckling a little. She might have not said that to others, probably wouldn't have, actually. Tris hadn't had the same childhood Nikita had, but she'd had one that was different from the usual storybook idea of one. It made it easier to say certain things.

Not everything, of course, but a few things.

[priordivergence]

"Well, if I slip up somewhere, you're just going to have to be my back up, right?" I crook my pinky briefly in the air like I mean to seal in a real promise.

Pinky promises had been yet another first in Darrow and now they just make me smile. It's childish and silly, things I've never been allowed.

[femmejosephine]

It took her a moment to realize what Tris was doing, and then she laughed for a moment. It was silly and odd and just the right note here. She put her hand up and tucked her pinky around Tris's.

"Pinky swear," she said too solemnly. "If you can't figure out how to have a birthday party, I'll be right there not being able to figure out how to be at one. At least I remembered a gift."

[priordivergence]

It feels both gravely important and delightfully silly, especially between the two of us, both so potentially dangerous. Sometimes I wonder how to inhabit both spheres, if it's even possible.

"That's really kind of you. You didn't have to," I say without any false modesty. I had told everyone that gift giving would be optional. "I'm glad you came."

[femmejosephine]

Nikita shrugged as she dropped her pinky. The gift wasn't much, just a certificate for a massage, and she'd known gifts were optional, but Tris was a friend. She'd always liked being generous to her friends, when she could be.

"Well, I thought if I was going to do the birthday party thing, I ought to go all out, yeah?" she chuckled. "I even brought a friend, but it probably doesn't count since he was invited too."

The smart thing to do would have been to pretend that she and Cole had just happened to arrive at the same time. If Tris knew that she and Cole had walked together, she might assume things about their friendship that were untrue or even decide that Nikita and Cole could be used against each other. It was a potential risk to her or to Cole. She said it anyway.

[priordivergence]

I look over at Cole, smiling thinly, and glance back at Nikita. I don't say anything but I do raise my eyebrows and smile a little wider. If she wants to tell me, I'll welcome it, but I also understand the importance of keeping secrets. Even Christina, steeped in her Candor upbringing, knows it too.

"I guess we all find each other here. The...fighting types."

Let her do with that description as she will.

[femmejosephine]

The last time she'd seen that kind of smile and eyebrow raise, it had been Carla, wondering about Michael. Before that, it had been Carla wondering about Gray. And before that, well, Michael again. Carla didn't really believe that Cousin Michael was a cousin, and Nikita couldn't blame her.

"Fighting types?" Nikita replied, letting a little smile play around her mouth. "Dunno what you mean. I'm a waitress. He's a bike courier. No fighting here, unless you're talking about people who want yesterday's special today."

It had almost become a game to pretend she didn't know what Tris meant. It had started with her statement that she'd fallen down the stairs when Tris bandaged her arm and had just kept going. It was entirely good-natured on Nikita's part, at least, and she hoped it was on Tris's part as well.

[priordivergence]

"And I'm an instructor," I agree, enjoying the game as much as she must. Neither of us is fooled but we understand why we keep doing this. It becomes a game that we both play almost to keep in practice.

"How is waitressing these days anyway?" I ask, putting on a smile.

[femmejosephine]

It didn't fool Tris, but it wasn't meant to. It was in some ways a little reminder to herself to watch out, to be careful what she said and who she said it to. Right now it was good-natured, but with Russell or Dr. Reid or another cop, it wasn't. It was serious and necessary.

"It's not bad. My boss has been a bit distracted by her other business lately, but she's a good boss even with that. Can't complain," Nikita shrugged. "How's instructing?"

[priordivergence]

"Who is it you work for?" After a year in the city, I've met most people here in passing, especially the so-called out-of-towners who have some kind of invisible mark that separates us from the born citizens.

"My students are good. It's exciting."

[femmejosephine]

"Kenya Rosewater at Bondurant's," she replied easily. She didn't hide that since it was part of her persona as a waitress and also wasn't hard to fact-check. No point in lying about things that were easily called out.

"She runs a nightclub, too. Desire, I think it's called. I've never been. Nightclubs aren't really my scene."

They had been, when Section made them her scene, but she hadn't quite felt comfortable there all the same.

[priordivergence]

"I don't think I've met her, but I've eaten there." I can still remember a painful winter's afternoon, consumed by the miserable cold of the tank. The memory makes my bones feel brittle.

"But I can tell you for sure that I definitely haven't been to Desire." Not because I don't mind loudness and bright lights, but because I couldn't even begin to attempt dancing.

[femmejosephine]

"Not a fan of the nightlife?" Nikita teased, since she could have guessed that about Tris. "I'd think the Dauntless types would like a good party at a nightclub. Alcohol, loud music, people getting into fights. No?"

Adrenaline junkies sometimes liked partying more than others, and Dauntless sounded like it was mostly that.

[priordivergence]

"Only if the nightlife involves being facedown asleep in bed." Or, increasingly, doing lots of other things in bed. I like Dauntless in wide open spaces, not in dark, loud ones.

"Being Dauntless doesn't meant I go looking for a fight, you know."

[femmejosephine]

"Never said you did," Nikita chuckled. "Which isn't to say that fights don't find people sometimes. It happens. Not so often here, though. Kinda nice, yeah?"

As for being facedown asleep in bed, she was staying away from that comment and all the comments that could be related to it. It just seemed like the smartest plan.

[priordivergence]

I smile at her avoidance of my comment, feeling surprisingly cheeky for having made such a double entendre. Or having at least said what could be interpreted as one.

"It's nice not having to look over my shoulder all the time."

[femmejosephine]

"Yeah, it is," Nikita agreed, which totally contradicted her earlier statement about just being a waitress. She knew it, though, and she was alright with it, at least with Tris. Others, not so much.

"I'm even thinking I might get a pet. Couldn't really have one before."

[priordivergence]

"I've never had one before either." I wonder if it was Nikita's choice or her upbringing, the same as my own upbringing that had never allowed for us to indulge in companion animals.

"But now I have Elan. And really, if you have the space for it, you absolutely should."

[femmejosephine]

She was pretty sure she wouldn't get a rabbit. Maybe a cat. She'd always liked them. She'd even had one briefly, right after she moved into her Section-provided apartment. Michael had told her to get rid of it, said it was a distraction. It was. It had been meant to be.

"Got a whole flat to myself. Might even take over the one across the hall, since tall dark and tattooed over there is never in it."

Gentle teasing about Tris's love life might provoke some teasing of her own. That was alright.

[priordivergence]

"Tall, dark, and tattooed?" I echo, trying to make out if that's someone I know. Then I realize that the person she means is right in front of me and I smile, looking over to Tobias.

"You know me. Always trying to help out a friend."

[femmejosephine]

That smile was just goofy. Cute and funny, but goofy. She was glad Tris had Tall Dark and Tattooed.

"Always the giving type, you," she agreed, which was deliberately ironic considering Tris's background.