A/N: A quick one shot inspired on the song One More Light by Linkin Park. Posted to Tumblr but per request of a friend am posting here
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Trigger Warning (Suicide, Depression, PTSD) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Chasm.
He once looked at this place and was awed in it's dangerous beauty. The raw power that raged beneath them all. He had thrilled at using it to teach initiates lessons about the dangers of being Dauntless.
It was the place where life was celebrated in a Dauntless way.
Now he stood over it, bottle in hand, and bitterness boiling in his blood.
The bitterness and anger he could allow, not the grief. That was weakness.
Or was it? Did it make any of them weak to grieve over the loss of a life?
Fuck he didn't know anymore. Before, he wouldn't have given a shit. He would have inwardly sneered at the cowardice of the actions….of jumping….of giving up.
Eric cursed ever getting close to the asshole. To letting down those cold steel walls and becoming friends. If he had never done that then he wouldn't be where he is now.
He wouldn't be thinking what he was now.
That they...no he...had it all wrong.
He lifted the bottle to drink deeply as a figure emerged from the shadows and went to stand beside him.
The new comer didn't say anything. Just stood there in his brooding silence.
"What do you want, Four." Eric let out in a weary sigh.
That in itself spoke volumes to Four. He had sat for an hour, just watching as Eric had stood in this same spot for just as long.
"I guess I am just making sure we don't have to hold another funeral this week." Came his honest reply, even if he was still guarded.
Eric snorted and lifted the bottle before he swallowed and replied. "Should think you would be fucking glad for it to be me this time."
Four glared at the young leader. "Just because I don't like you or particularly agree with your methods does not mean I wish you dead, Eric. I'm not you."
Eric gritted his teeth hard enough to make them grate against each other. "You know not a goddamn thing about me, Four. You never did and you never tried."
Four sat in silence for a few moments. Before this week he would have tossed out that he knew all he needed to know about Eric because of what he showed him.
But this death….it let him know that what a person showed wasn't always all there was. He had misjudged before..
"You're right. I didn't and don't."
Eric looked to the side and saw Four with an expression he recognized. It was everything he was feeling inside right now.
"Why did he do it goddammit?" He hissed out, causing Four to look at him in a bit of surprise at what he heard in Eric's voice.
Anger, guilt and even sadness.
"What?" Eric demanded of him.
Four shook his head and shrugged. "I just...I mean...I didn't know.."
"That the cold, hard, dickhead of a leader could care? Or that he might have had a friend at all? Believe me it isn't something I cared to let be known. I don't even know how or when he became a friend. He just...fucking did. It was like you couldn't not be his friend."
Four's lips tilted in a smile before they feel and the heavy weight of loss hit him. "Uriah always had that way about him."
"He always seemed so fucking happy, Four. Even after all the shit with Erudite went down and we had the mess to clean up. He was there helping everyone else deal with it all." Eric shoved a hand through his hair angrily. "Why couldn't he just fucking tell me? Tell someone?"
Four shrugged but it felt weak, like there was a two ton weight pressing down on him. "Maybe he thought we would think he was weak for it."
And that was the problem. The thing that brought Eric to the Chasm to drink and think.
How many times had he stood here thinking anyone who choose that way out was a coward but hadn't thought once about what caused them to make that decision. Hadn't spared one fucking thought to what drove them to that in the first place.
Hadn't asked if there was some kind of pain they were in that made them decide the battle was just too hard.
If Uriah had come to him, what would he have done? Would he have scoffed at him and called him weak for having those thoughts? Would he have tried to understand or help him.
He didn't know the answer to that. He suspected he wouldn't have understood him or taken it seriously.
"I umm…." Four clears his throat after he gets choked up on his own musings "I talked with Zeke. He has been trying to deal with it as best as possible and he thinks that…" Four trails off and looks over to Eric who is scowling in his direction waiting for him to continue.
"He thinks what?" Eric finally grunts out.
"Maybe we should look into getting everyone that was involved in all of that someone to talk to at Amity. Counselors of a kind. Zeke is actually going to one himself and they said something about a condition called...PTSD." Four said and braced himself for Eric to laugh at or scoff at the suggestion.
Eric's Erudite mind was whirling though. Trying to remember everything he had read about psychological conditions. Things he studied pre-war society had. Things he had thought were beyond their world and faction and had been weeded out.
After the events last year though, he was coming to see it wasn't as simple as being stamped out or weeded out.
"Yeah, maybe we could do that." Eric finally said softly. He caught Four's surprised eyes widening and he sighed. "Uriah was one of the strongest people I know. Even after losing Marlene and having to go through all that crap at Erudite with Tris….he still came out fighting and wanting to help others fight. Whatever it was that caused him to feel he couldn't fight anymore…."
Eric trailed off and looked to Four who just nodded.
"It will be hard to get some of the old timers to trust the counselors or open up. Fuck…" Four runs a hand through his hair, thinking about all his own past trauma. "I know I wouldn't want to willingly."
"We have to do something. We can say it is for the fucking faction but this shit where we just ignore the problem...it's gotta stop. We all know where that leads from what went down with Erudite." Eric huffed out.
Four nodded again in agreement. Eric passed the bottle to Four, who took it in silence.
The two sat drinking for another few minutes.
A better and more fitting tribute, the two once enemies coming together in memory and support of their faction and friend, would not be found anywhere.
For all of those silently suffering, you are not alone. There is help and people who care. It is not weakness. You are no less of a warrior for seeking help. Your struggles could also one day help another in their battles.
Speak out. Share. We will accept and understand and what we can't understand, we will strive to do so.