A/N: This fic has been LONG overdue and I vastly apologize to etudeoftheartist on FF for how long it's taken to this to come to fruition T_T
The prompt: How would Eric win Tris' heart over during initiation while fighting with Four over her?
The Trainer
Breaking down the week's standings was our usual Friday night. And by our, I mean Four, myself, and our assigned supervisor, Eric. We were hunkered down in a corner of the Pit, knocking back shots as we broke down which initiates were doing well and which were going to need a solid kick in the ass.
Initiation is a bitch.
I never regretted my decision to take over as the Dauntless-born trainer before this year. Then again, before this year I'd never had to listen to my companions verbally spar back and forth about a certain blonde transfer.
"Why did you hold her back from fighting on the first day?" The conversation had been derailed the moment that Eric asked Four why he chose to do his job and select someone to skip out on the first day of training. How dare he.
Four had laughed it off initially. "You're kidding me, right? She was ten different ways scrawny. After just a day of drills, we would have been scraping her off of the mat," he explained, amusement sparking in his eyes.
Eric wasn't convinced. I took the opportunity to dole out another round of tequila from the bottle that I'd jacked from Keith behind the bar. "Maybe yes, maybe no," the young Leader countered. "Either way, it would have been a good lesson for her."
I shook my head. I didn't have a stake in this conversation. In fact, the reason why I'd picked training the Dauntless-born was so that I didn't have to agonize over who would start doing XYZ part of training when. They all did the same steps at the same time. That wasn't the case for the mixture of Erudite and Candor that Four's predecessor had to deal with.
"She's fought every other day besides day one, hasn't she?" I asked. The limes had vanished. I shuffled the binders around on the table, looking for the bag of fruit slices. Eric and Four continued to banter. My comment had only fanned the flames rather than ease them.
"Of course she has. When she went on day two, she got her ass handed to her. I don't see why it matters that she didn't start on day one," Four insisted.
Eric picked up his shot glass and pointed accusingly at Four. "You're thinking the wrong way. If she'd fought on day one, then she would have had a chance on day two. Now she's a day behind the point she could be at," he remarked. "Lauren, what are you looking for?"
"The limes," I replied idly. They were still MIA.
"Chump," he crowed before downing the shot plain. The wince on his face contested his easy-going attitude. "But as I was saying, if you had held back one of the stronger people - Edward or even Hayes - and put in Prior instead, she would have been on a more even footing for day two."
Four shook his head, unconvinced or unwilling to budge on his view. I found my quarry and passed out another round of limes. For all his bravado, Eric chomped into his rather than saving it for the inevitable refill. "Is this really relevant?" I pressed before taking my own shot.
Tequila wasn't my favorite, but it was Four's turn to pick our shots. We'd decided to rotate through each week until Initiation was done. It made the decision-making process more bearable. We were picking kids to go join the Factionless in the end, after all.
"Totally relevant," Eric insisted. "Especially when Four's crush keeps him from accurately training his initiates."
Four snorted, spitting out half his shot all over our papers. "Oi! Watch it!" I hissed, quickly brushing the liquor off before it could seep into my reports. He apologized and resumed his glaring at our Leader.
"I don't have a crush," he snarled. The redness on his ears disagreed. Tequila never lies. "And I'm doing just fine training my people."
Eric rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay. So when you're talking to Tris one on one and making those soft doe eyes, I'm supposed to believe you're giving those to Drew as well? Or are they just for the ladies?"
I rolled my eyes. Of all the times for their rivalry to flare up, it had to be during Initiation. I would have killed to have them be fighting over a nice, initiated Dauntless girl. Based on this Prior's reports, she was skirting the disaster line for getting cut in the end. As miserable as it was to see the two boy bickering about her now, it would be even worse to watch Eric taunt Four if the girl got kicked out of the faction. Eric didn't hold any punches. Not since our initiation.
"I'm sure that Four makes doe eyes at anyone who will give him the time of day," I said, rolling my eyes. "Same as you. Same as me. Can we please get back to ranking? I don't think we've even talked about my initiates and we've only got six hours left to the evening." I took the opportunity to redirect the conversation so that they didn't end up brawling on the barroom floor.
It didn't work, of course. We were three, maybe four, shots in at this point. "Fine," Four finally acquiesced. "She's cute, alright?"
Eric pounded his fist on the table, whooping. "Fucking called it. You can't hide shit. So you were giving her the easy ride," he cheered. "I so knew it."
I cradled my head in one hand. Apparently this whole thing was just going to need to run its course. "Okay, okay, okay," I cut in again. "Cute transfer. Doesn't mean you can go easy on her and you know that just cut any good shit you have to say about her in half for credibility."
Four turned his attention to me. His finger wavered in my face as he pointed accusingly at me. "You can't say that. I'm perfectly unbiased," he insisted. "I make her do everything that everyone else does. No way I'd do anything and you know it, Lauren. I'm not even flirting actively."
"Because that's really going to make her fall head over heels for you," Eric sneered. "The two second glances - that she can't see unless she's got eyes on the back of her head. What's your next plan, being mean and tugging on her ponytail in the schoolyard?"
It was probably the tequila - round five went down when I realized my glass had been refilled again - but I had to agree with Eric. Against my better judgement I found myself invested in the conversation. "Obviously you can't do anything because conflict of interest blah blah blah but you still gotta know that you've gotta do more than just look at a girl, right?" I asked.
He became very interested in the chart of initiates in front of us all of a sudden. "Dunno what you're talking about. It's worked for me in the past," he mumbled, more to the papers than to either of us.
"Maybe it worked on a Stiff who didn't have any other options," Eric snorted. "You've got to at least do something obvious. Fuck, go basic and give her a gift. Oh wait, you can't because you're saving all your points to see how high the bank can count."
Tequila ended up on the papers anyway as I choked back a laugh. "He's got you there. This ain't the convent. Prior'll know what real Dauntless romance is like the second she gets accepted. If she gets accepted because can we not forget that this is an initiate and you're a goddamn instructor. And we need to fucking rank these twerps," I ranted, waving the bottle in the air.
I ended up finishing the bottle off myself when - after we finally got some ranks on the board - Eric "casually" wondered aloud if Prior would want a thigh holster. Fucking boys.
The Artist
There was literally nothing worse in the world than conversing with Eric. He's cocky, arrogant, and an absolute self-centered jerk. He also knew exactly how I felt about him and thought it was hilarious to bring it up any time that I had the misfortune of speaking to him. Like today.
I don't know which of the two guys - Four or Eric - had sat down at the table first. I just knew that neither were there to ask me how my day was going. "You heard who won CTF last night, right Tori?" Four started off, smugger than an Erudite.
I had just grunted and gone back to pushing my peas around my dinner plate. They were cold but they were green. This week's vegetables were kind of off and there weren't any substitutions available. So I had to eat the peas, even if they were cold.
"He thinks he's bragging but I barely call it a win," Eric scowled. I didn't ask why he'd been the other team leader instead of Lauren. Any opportunity that the Leader had to challenge his lower-ranked nemesis, he took.
The blonde nudged me with his elbow. I resented the contact, especially how I dropped my peas back onto my plate from the jostle. "Would you call it a win if they didn't take out my team members guarding the flag? That rule's gotta change," he grumbled.
Four scoffed. I didn't even need to contribute in this conversation, apparently. "If you didn't like the rules, you should have thought of that before agreeing to participate. And you've never complained about that one before."
"That's because the times that I've won, my team has done it by taking out every single one of your members," Eric retorted.
I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. "I'd call that a waste of resources, personally. You spend more time making sure every single one of your enemies are down and out instead of just taking out the ones near the flag? Dumb," I said, shaking my head back and forth.
"Excuse you?" He fumed. There was that hair-trigger temper. "That's exactly what we do. Not my fault that Roman Numerals over here keeps all his people in the same place."
It was Four's turn to scoff. "You're just mad about the teams. I got the smart people," he taunted.
"You mean you got Tris," I amended for him. I wasn't an idiot. Tris had been on my radar ever since she wandered onto my tattoo chair. Even more so I paid attention to who else was interested in the Divergent girl. She needed to have someone watching her back, even if it was just a low ranked tat artist like myself.
It was a good thing I was watching, too, because I saw the way that both boys' eyes flared at the mention of her name. It wasn't a good sign. I hadn't made my mind up about Four yet - something about his reclusive nature didn't sit well with me - but Eric hated him, so that gave him a few more points in my mind.
"What's that supposed to mean? Neither of us 'got' her. Don't tell me Lauren's been starting bullshit rumors," Eric snapped.
Oh powers above and below. Please no.
"You know that we shared a moment together under the stars," Four taunted, winking at me in a show of camaraderie. I didn't react other than to take another scoop of peas.
Someone save that poor girl from the misguided affection of two eighteen-year-old boys.
"Standing upon the edge of the ferris wheel, all of Chicago laid before our feet. Real romantic. What did you do again? Oh yeah. You tried to shoot her in the face," Four continued to twist the knife.
That only fanned the flames of Eric's frustration. His hand clenched into a fist, white knuckled from how tight he held it. "With paintballs," Eric growled. "Which is the point of the game. It's not like I was shooting live rounds at her."
I wondered at what point the two young adults would realize that I didn't really care to hear about their pissing contest.
Well, I was marginally interested but solely for Tris' sake. Neither of them were winners in the faction, but I genuinely feared that if Eric found out about her Divergence then she'd find herself the victim of some tragic "accident." The jury was still out on what Four would do. He spent plenty of time around the shop having some massive, sentimental backpiece done up by Marissa. Other than that I barely saw the kid.
Really, they were both kids. One was a Leader though and a brash one at that. The other worked in the Control Room and prepped other kids to become soldiers. I didn't respect either of them, not when they were half my age and given more than double my responsibility.
"I'll repeat again - you were shooting at her head."
"I was taking the game seriously!"
"You take everything too seriously, Eric," I interjected. I might as well give my two points while I had the chance.
He looked over at me, remembering they had an audience. "Excuse me?"
I finally was out of food to mess around with on my plate. "It's why no one likes you. You're constantly in everyone's face about something." He liked to parade around like a self-entitled asshole. The title of "Leader" only aggravated his attitude, especially after what I'd heard was a tumultuous Initiation.
Four nodded quickly. "It's definitely not going to land you any points with Prior, either," he jeered. "Not compared to me."
"I can make sure no one gets their ink from you ever again." His threat was empty. I had twenty years of building a client base. He had two years of following Max's orders. Eric otherwise ignored my criticism, rounding back on Four's earlier comments. "You're no gem, How'd Prior even get you up off the ground anyways? You must have been a complete bear the whole time."
I stood up, the tray scraping noisily as I picked it up. "Have fun fighting, children. Frankly I don't think either of you have a chance in Hell with Tris but I might just be projecting here."
The protests rang out behind me. I ignored them, much like I should have from the start.
The Secretary
"No, no, I'm telling you. She got first." My boyfriend was a stubborn ass. Trust an ex-Nose to think they know everything about a person from ten seconds of observation.
Richards' sighs made the static even worse on the line. He was out on a supply run to Amity, had been for the last day and a half, and had called me out of desperation for some news that didn't have to do with animal husbandry or drum circles. My position in Leadership may be annoying as fuck but it did come with perks. Getting a direct line to the truck drivers at any moment was one of them.
"You're telling me that scrawny piece of Abnie dust actually ranked top out of all the initiates this year?" Hello, yes, that was what I had just said.
I spun in my chair, rolling me eyes to myself. No one was around to see the amazing circumference I could achieve on-demand. Most of the faction was still in their apartments and dorms sleeping off their hangovers. Naturally I had to come in to work bright and early to stare at files. Hence the com call to Richards. "Yeah it's been a real dustup. The older Petrad - what the hell's his name - his brother was Initiating this year and he's been complaining all night," I explained.
I missed hearing the main door open and gave myself a good fright when I finished another revolution in my chair to see Eric's eerily cheerful expression.
"Gotta go," I drawled, cutting off Richards' response. I might be giving our youngest Leader a stupid smile right now, but I wasn't about to keep yakking on the com in front of him. I did value my job after all. Where else was I going to be able to work and keep an eye on Richards' cat?
Eric just shook his head and palmed through the mailbox on my desk. "Rich miss out on Ranking?" he asked quickly.
"Yessir. Had to take the overnight twice in a row," I explained.
"Didn't he have to do that last year, too?" Eric asked, pausing in his sorting, a piece of Veronica's mail hovering in his fingertips. Dammit. Missed one.
Eric didn't ask follow-up questions usually. He was the kind of guy who came in to the office, took his inbox crap and barricaded himself away until it was time for drills or meals. I didn't mind - I didn't want to shoot the shit with him any more than he did me. There was always too much to do, some new crisis in Chicago.
No, Eric being chatty was definitely unusual.
I had to think back to remember. "Yeah, there was that weird rot on the crops last year and his crew got pushed back a few days before getting the go-ahead to come in," I replied warily. "Don't tell me you put him on doubles. What'd he do this time? Let Millie into your office? Don't blame him for that. I swear she goes through the air vents. "
Laughter - genuine, grade A laughter - burst from Eric. I think I saw an actual smile, too. It was surreal. "I did not have anything to do with Sergeant Richards' duty roster. This week," he emphasized. "If I'd known I would have swapped him out with someone else. It sucks missing the ranking party."
"Ain't no party like a ranking party," I joked. It still felt weird, conversing with Eric casually. Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike the guy. I respected him most days, hated him the others. He was eight years my junior and already a faction Leader. Still, I didn't really want to be Leader so I got over the jealousy. After a few weeks of sending all of his paperwork out in duplicate instead of triplicate.
He bobbed his head and then we sat there, looking at each other, in an awkward silence. "Anyway," I started to say.
"So Kyle," Eric began. He laughed again.
It was weird. Eh.
He got about ten feet from his office door when the main door opened up again. This time I was paying attention though and watched as Four No-Last-Name stomped his way in. "You cheated," he bellowed, a finger pointed accusingly at the only other person in the room who wasn't me. I might as well have been invisible to him.
Eric's good natured smile only widened. "Cheated? Me?" he asked slyly. His body turned to lean against the doorframe casually instead of entering his bunker of an office. "I don't understand what you mean."
Four's face was positively red. "We both had to wait until Initiation was over to make a move, that was the rule," he asserted. Whatever was going on, it was a Hell of a lot more interesting than the armory inventory I was about to start compiling. Neither of the guys were paying attention to me so I didn't even bother to pluck at random keys on my console.
"I still am not following what you mean, my dear competitor. I haven't done anything wrong," Eric insisted. The upturned corner of his mouth was taunting. Come at me, his whole attitude screamed.
I pulled open a drawer in my desk to see if I had any snacks. It'd been too long since I'd witnessed a decent Four-Eric fight personally.
Four finally budged from his over dramatic pose by the office entrance, storming over to stand with his face mere inches from Eric's. His shouting went down a few decibels but the frustration was still very much present. "I was all ready to start legit flirting and I hear through the grapevine that you were making out with Tris at the fucking rank party?" The pitch of his voice rose to a crack at the word party.
Tris, first ranked. This was all over some sixteen-year-old girl? My initial reaction was complete disdain until I did the math again. They were only two years older than her, maybe less if the birthdays were weird. It made sense in a weird twisted way that heterosexual love did. Have opposing genitals? Must flirt regardless of actual attraction.
I missed Eric's retort but it must have been a gem. Four continued to rant and rave that he'd "cheated" somehow. I was beyond content to sit out this conversation. It was way more entertaining to observe.
"There's no way that you'd be making out with an ex-Stiff her first night in Dauntless," Four insisted. "Not unless you were putting the moves on her before then."
Eric put his hands up in a consiliary motion. "Hey now, you were the one going all crazy with the 'quiet moments in the moonlight.' There's no move I could have done to compete with that. Not without breaking Initiate-Member rules and you know I didn't do that."
Storming to the opposite end of the hall, Four threw a punch at the walls. They were concrete and far stronger than an angry eighteen-year-old's fist. "So the leather holster she suddenly had at the end of Phase One just appeared in her locker?" he shouted.
Eric looked sideways at me and shrugged. "Oops." Alright, so at least one of them knew I was here watching. I could have pretended to do actual work but it was just too much effort. Eric would know I was faking anyways. Who would be working when there was a beautiful shouting match going on?
I gave him a big fat wink and a nod of encouragement. Again, I had nothing to lose. "That was an anonymous gift, technically," Eric added after Four groaned again. Wall: 2. Four: 0.
"After that all I ever did was talk to the girl. Until she was a full member. Even then, I just talked," Eric insisted.
The other kid continued to glare at the concrete rather than his nemesis. "So you're saying the Pit tapes lied?"
"I'm saying the Pit tapes aren't detailed enough to make out faces half the time, and that making out with someone who isn't an initiate anymore is totally allowed."
"I don't believe you," Four finally turned around, his voice cold and dead. "You're evil. She wouldn't fall for a guy like you."
Eric laughed bitterly. "Ah yes. That classic Four characterization. I'm evil like a storybook villain because I actually work people in training and point out people's weaknesses. Want me to show you?"
Eric'd voice took on a sing-song tone. "You're a shitty Dauntless because you still value your outsider attitude and don't bother to integrate yourself into the rest of the faction other than to drink with people who are too 'good' to tell you that you're a self-absorbed shithead. If they had half a mind they would-"
I wouldn't get to hear the rest of Eric's critical diagnosis because he was suddenly fending off a bloody-knuckled Four. The Leader managed to redirect Four's hits and his grey-blue shirt - another abnormality - stayed entirely blood-free.
"Hey guys, I know I'm just Mr. Secretary over here but don't break my shit," I yelped as a wild kick - Four's, naturally - threatened to knock down the glass planter I had atop my filing cabinets. Eric wasn't even fighting back. He continued to dodge until Four came crashing down onto a tiny table that visitors to the office used to fill out paperwork.
I cringed as papers went flying and metal creaked. "That's enough, Four," Eric finally said. He shoved the other boy into the closest chair and pressed his knuckles just hard enough onto Four's chest to keep him sitting down. It was like watching Millie torment a mouse. When she had one cornered she'd just bat it around when it tried to escape. Little effort. Big effect.
"I let you have your rant and spit in my face, Quatro," Eric said. His gaze was a barely-contained wildfire. If Four had continued to lash out, I probably would have spent the rest of the day piecing the office back together.
The door opened for the third time in a very short morning. Goddammit why weren't any of these people sleeping? Ah, yes. They didn't phone their boyfriends at four AM to dirty the com lines up.
The object of these two idiots affection peered in from the hallway. "Hey, I'm not sure I'm in the right place?" Tris Prior, heartbreaker, looked directly at me. I forgot how it was impossible to see all the way into the entryway from the hall.
I canted my head and summoned the most obnoxious smile I could muster. "Are you looking for Idiot Number One or Idiot Number Four, darling?" I asked in the sugariest, sweetest voice I could summon.
I had to give her credit. She only blinked once before cracking a careful smile. She'd survive here. That rank wasn't total bullshit. "I guess Number One," Tris chuckled. "He said he'd be up here sometime this morning."
"He's over there-" I pointed with a pen "-making heart eyes as soon as he heard your voice. Ignore the grumpy list item. He's just getting over a nasty hangover, isn't that right, Four?"
There was a scramble as both fought to get to the doorway first. Eric had the clear advantage, smoothly leaning against the door. Four was forced to lurk behind him, peering between Eric's arm and the door at the girl who apparently didn't want to date him. Or at least wanted to kiss Eric more. Again, the antics of the Heterosexuals baffled me. If Four wasn't such a ponce I would have just said "why bother fighting." But no one wanted to get with that kind of guy, not even in a devil's threeway.
"I didn't think you'd actually come up here. I mean, you do have a few days before you have to pick anything," Eric said.
"Pick what?" Four asked. I almost felt bad for him.
I moved my chair just so to be able to see Tris' face instead of Four's ass. "I figured better now than later to see where I'm going to spend the next six months. You did say trainees pretty much lived up here."
My position didn't let me see the full expression but I did at least get to hear Four's disgruntled gasp of "Oh fuck no."
Eric turned to let Tris in and she finally stepped into the office properly. He draped an arm loosely over her shoulder. "You want to see what your office will look like? You will be spending quite a lot of late nights there."
"Awww you make Rich's blushes look like freckles compared to that signal flare you've got going on."