I Can't Hide The Fire Within Part 7

Hello! Here's the next chapter. Please let me know what you think

I had to laugh at that. It was such a dauntless response. No fear. No anxiety. Just doing things for the fun of it.

"Do you not want to live to be thirty?" I asked, chuckling.

It was meant as a joke but suddenly Dean’s face got very serious and he seemed to lose all the life in his eyes.

"I don't really know." He whispered. He said it so quietly that I wasn't sure he even intended for me to hear it, but I replied anyway.

"What do you mean?" I spoke softly. This change of attitude felt like it came out of nowhere and I wasn't prepared for it. I had only ever seen Dean happy. This sad boy in front of me was not one I was familiar with.

"Dauntless don't look after their old. Once you reach an age where you are no longer useful, they kick you out." I gasp quietly. That was not common knowledge and it almost made me relieved to have chosen amity, at least there they let you stay for life. "Physical strength is vital to be in dauntless, when you lose it they tell you to leave. It's something I've always known, and I wouldn't change my decision because of it, but it just ... It makes you think differently about old age, you know? We spend a lot of our time policing the factionless and trying not to think about how in forty maybe fifty years if you’re lucky this could be our future. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I were to just die young. If I die before I get to that stage then I won't have to face being turned away by my family." Dean explained whilst staring out of the train door.

Whilst he was talking he had slowly crept forward and he was now sitting in the doorway with his legs hanging out of the train. I had a horrible thought that he might launch himself out of the train in an impromptu suicide attempt but so far he had remained firmly seated on the ledge. The fact that he could sit there so calmly made my mind spin. I was starting to feel sick just looking at him, but I also couldn't get rid of the idea that he might throw himself from the train so I carefully made my way forward to sit next to him. I was almost hyperventilating when I swung my legs out to dangle next to his, but I still made myself do it. One glance down told me that we were about five stories up from the ground and in line with a couple of passing rooftops.

I immediately regretted looking down as I felt my stomach drop and my head begin to feel dizzy. I quickly clutched at Dean’s hand in the hope that we would be able to comfort each other. His warm hand in mine made my vision stop swimming and I was starting to regain control of my breathing. He was something solid I could grip onto whilst sitting in this perilous position. I only hoped that my hand was giving him as much support as his was giving me.

When I found my voice I managed to mumble a "that's horrible"

Dean gave a short snort at that comment, as though it amused him. I looked up at his face in confusion, but found him staring down at our joined hands. I was suddenly very aware that this was a lot of physical contact for dauntless. Amity were always a more "touchy-feely" faction and growing up in that society often made me forget that other people were more reserved with their touching. This was probably very weird for Dean. He was just staring at our interlocked fingers as though they were some kind of puzzle that he couldn't quite figure out. I'm sure that my hand was starting to sweat from the tension. I was just about to pull my hand from his grip when his fingers ever so slightly tightened around mine.

"It's not that bad really." Dean said, breaking me out of my mini panic attack over the hand holding situation.

What's not so bad? What's he talking about? The hand holding? Well, I guess 'not so bad' is better than 'repulsive' or 'what the hell do you think you're doing'.

"I've grown up in dauntless so I've always known it was coming."

Oh! He's still talking about getting old in dauntless!

"It's just ... The other day ..." Dean stopped and ran a hand through his hair, obviously torn. "Why am I even talking to you about this?" He chuckled to himself but it wasn't a funny chuckle. It wasn't like his ones from earlier. It wasn't like the ones that made me want to join in. This one was humourless and cold. "I don't even know you." He said in a harsh tone, ripping his hand from mine.

It was clear that something other than me was bothering him. A minute ago he had been fine with holding my hand and talking to me, but now he was glaring at the ground as though he wanted to kill it, refusing to even look at me.

"Sometimes it's easier to talk to people you don't know." I said quietly.

Dean let out a deep breath at that, it was as though I had given him the permission he needed to speak freely.

"It's my uncle ... There are a lot of stairs in the dauntless compound and last week my uncle tripped on them. It wasn't bad and nobody saw but me and my father, but he stumbled. He's just gone fifty and his job is to sit in a booth all day watching security cameras. He's not moving around a lot so he's not in the best shape. It's the first time I've ever seen him stumble but ... But I don't think it's going to be the last. I-I don't know how much longer he's got before people start to notice that he gets out of breath from one flight of stairs." Dean trailed off. It was obviously very hard for him to talk about.

I wanted to reach out and take his hand again. It was my first instinct. That was how we gave each other comfort in amity. But seeing as how he pulled his hand from mine I didn't want to force my amity ways on him. I didn't know how dauntless comforted each other, if they did at all, so I couldn't help him in a way he was used to. I settled on words.

"Dean, it'll be ok." I said softly, trying to get him to believe something which I didn't even believe myself. From what Dean had said I didn't think his uncle had much longer left before they chucked him out the door, but I didn't want to tell him that, so I chose the comforting lie instead.

"No it won't!" He shouted, twisting to glare at me. "It won't be ok. It's not going to get better! And in a couple of months my uncle is either going to be killed or forced to become factionless!" I could see the pain in his eyes as he yelled at me.

I wasn't offended or hurt by what he was saying because he wasn't really angry at me. He didn't really know me. He was angry at dauntless. He was angry about how his faction worked. And he was angry that soon he was going to lose someone he loved.

He was hurting and anger was the only way he knew to express how he felt.

"You're right. It probably won't be ok and it probably won't get better. But it definitely won't if you don't do something about it." I said, deciding that honesty was probably the best route from here on in.

"What do you mean?" Dean snapped at me, but not as harshly as he previously had. He was curious.

"You said that half the problem is that he spends all day sitting around, right? Well get him exercising in the evenings. I bet that you guys have a gym somewhere in dauntless. Get him down there and get him fit. It won't buy you forever and eventually he will have to face one of those two options, but it might buy you a bit of time." I shrugged, explaining my idea. I didn't want Dean to get his hopes up and have this plan fail but if the only thing it does is make him not feel completely useless, then I've helped a bit. At least with this plan he could feel like he was helping his uncle and who knows how long it will buy them.

I could see from the look on Dean’s face that he could see the benefits of the plan. A small smile started to twitch at the corner of his mouth and the frown in his forehead smoothed out. He was obviously thinking about ways to apply my plan and going through it all in his head.

We sat in silence for a long time. Each leaving the other alone to their thoughts. What would I do if I was faced with being kicked out of my faction when I grew old? Was that something I could live with? Could I live with the fear of the ultimate shunning I would receive from those closest to me hanging over my head every day? You'd have to be a very brave person to know that that's where you were heading and not have it bother you. I guess that's part of the point. Only those who were truly dauntless could handle it.

Yet another reason why I shouldn’t have been given dauntless during my test. The test was wrong. It had to be.

“Thanks.” Dean’s voice was quiet and I could barely hear it over the rumble of the train. It had been so quiet that I wasn’t even sure that he’d said it. I could have just imagined it. I glanced up to look at him, hoping his expression might give away if he had actually said anything or if I was just going crazy.

I had to stifle the gasp that tried to work its way from my lips at the look he was giving me. I managed to reduce it to a sharp intake of breath but I don’t think that I was really fooling anyone. His eyes were staring at mine with such intensity that I couldn’t seem to look away. I was held captured by them. A rabbit in the headlights. It was some time later when I finally managed to regain the power of speech.

“What are you thanking me for?” I asked, confused.

“For what you said. For giving me a way to save my uncle.” He said softly, his eyes still not leaving mine.

“It’s nothing.” I mumbled, feeling a warmth come to my cheeks.

“Believe me, it’s not nothing.” Dean said more firmly.

“You’re welcome.” I said with a small smile.

It was then that I finally managed to pull my eyes away from his. I forced them back to the view of the city in front of me and away from Dean. It was harder to do than it should have been and it was much harder than I would like to admit.

“Sorry about spilling my guts to you. You probably didn’t want to hear all about my personal problems.” Dean said guiltily. It may just have been my wishful thinking but his voice sounded slightly happier and had more life in it than it did a minute ago.

“Don’t apologise. You obviously needed to get that off of your chest. I don’t mind you unloading your problems onto me. I’m glad that I was able to help.” I waved him off.

“It’s just that sometimes it’s like I don’t understand my faction at all, you know?” Oh, believe me, I know. But dean didn’t give me a chance to reply before he carried on talking. “How can they just kill or kick out these people who just the day before were their faction, their blood? How can they not care about them? I know that they’re no longer at their physical peak and that limits what they can do but they’re family. Isn’t getting rid of them a bit harsh? Isn’t there something that they could do for the faction?” Dean said shaking his head.

As an outsider to the dauntless faction I had to say that I sided with Dean. It was hard to understand how anyone could be so heartless as to chuck out their friends and relatives merely because they hadn’t died before they started to age. I found it especially hard to comprehend when all I had to compare it to was my experiences in amity.

Yes, I wasn’t the biggest fan of my own faction and I never really felt at home there but that wasn’t the fault of any member of my faction. They were always so nice and went out of their way to make me feel included in everything that went on. Even if I didn’t belong there and even if my really family sucked, they were the family I chose and I knew that they would always care for me.

“I don’t really know much about how dauntless runs but I’ve got to say that it does seem like a crappy system.” I said honestly.

Dean laughed at that.

“It is a crappy system. But it’s a crappy system that I signed up to, so in a few decades, if I’m still alive, I’ll be the one being chucked out the door.” Dean said with a shrug as though it didn’t really matter to him what happened in his future.

“How can you say it like that?” I asked incredulously.

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t give a dam.” I explained. Dean let out a deep sigh at that.

“Honestly, it’s because I don’t expect to make it to that age. Most people in dauntless don’t. Our line of work and our hobbies aren’t exactly the safest things to do so we have short life expectancies.” Dean said, shrugging again.

“Don’t you want to live until you’re old?” I asked.

“And have to face the choice of walking away from everything I know and love or literally biting the bullet? No thanks.” Dean scoffed. But then his face softened slightly. “Did you know that in dauntless walking out the door is considered the coward’s way out? People think that they were too scared to do the ‘brave and honourable’ thing of killing themselves. But I think they’ve got it wrong. It takes a lot more courage to carry on living when you don’t know what you’re going to be living for anymore than it does to just end it. I think that those who chose to be factionless are the true dauntless. But I don’t trust that when my time comes I’ll have the courage to keep on living and I don’t want to hang around so that I can disappoint myself. So to answer your question, no, I don’t want to grow old.”

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