When two forces collide

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It was widely known that there was a rivalry between Four and Eric; Four had ranked first but Eric had got the leadership offer. The two hated each other; everyone knew that. They were wrong.

Or in which Eric fell in love with the tall boy from Abnegation during initiation.

Tags: friendship, romance, angst, lots of tears, life is unfair to Eric, long burn, Eric's POV, sex scenes, Eric is a soft baby sometimes, Tobias is a bit oblivious sometimes, they're both a bit stupid sometimes, happy ending

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Author's note: My best friend and I have noticed that the pairing Four/Eric wasn't a very popular one. It may be (it is actually) because of her that I started this story. I started it in the middle of writing a F/M fic (Eric/OC) and the idea of Eric and Four being together came up. I don't think I've ever been that inspired.

There will be five parts -the first one being the shortest- telling Eric and Tobibi's friendship and love story. I hope you'll like it.

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Part 1 – A new home

Eric stood at the ledge of one of the first cars of the speeding train. The train wasn't going that fast, Eric thought; he knew for a fact that the speed of the train was lowered for Initiation. Not everyone knew that but it was obvious if they wanted to keep some of the transfers who had never jumped into a moving train before and were very weak in terms of muscles and strength.

He peered outside, his Erudite-blue shirt sticking to his stomach with the wind, at the entrance of the car, one hand holding him secure so that he could lean his body out. He spotted a boy from Candor running alongside the train. But then Candor stopped running altogether and shook his head. Eric cursed inwardly; he was so close why was he giving up now? That poor Candor boy was now factionless.

Another boy caught his attention, he was from Abnegation. His too large grey clothes were obviously interfering with his running but he was not giving up. The determination to make it on this train was blatant in his eyes. Eric watched as he pushed harder on his long legs and suddenly he was catching the metallic handle with both hands and Eric jerked away not to obstruct the door. But the tall boy couldn't jump in, Eric watched him with wide eyes. Jump! He thought. The boy did. But as soon as he had one foot on the ledge of the car, it slipped away and he yelped. Eric rushed forward, thinking that he had fallen but there he was, gripping the handle for dear life, a deep frown on his brow and his body bumping repeatedly against the side of the train. Eric noticed with a start that the train wasn't on the platform anymore; if the boy let go now he would die. Grabbing the handle inside the car, Eric leaned out and held out his hand. "Here!" He yelled to the boy.

The latter grunted and let go of the handle with one hand to snatch Eric's arm. They held each other's wrist in a tight grip and Eric heaved him inside in no time, dragging him as far away from the door as possible, avoiding the other initiates in the process. When he had him against a wall, he let go of the stranger's hand.

"You okay?" he tried. The boy was bent forward, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. It must have been an awful moment, he had almost died. When he straightened up and put his hands on his sides, Eric realized just how tall he was compared to him. Eric wasn't particularly short but he felt like it in front of the boy. He had to tilt his head to look into his blue eyes and the top of Eric's head probably arrived at his nose. That wasn't fair.

"Yeah," the taller boy breathed. "Thank you." Then he turned away and plopped down, his back against the wall of the car. Eric shrugged; he didn't want to sit so he settled for standing next to Tall Boy for the rest of the ride.

He assessed the rest of the initiates in their car. It was one of the first cars of the train so most of them were dauntless-born and they kept casting Eric and Tall Boy curious glances. There were also two kids from Candor who looked very proud of themselves. Eric couldn't feel proud of himself; he had been trained for this, it was easier for him than any of the initiates.

He still was excited about the whole thing. Initiation meant no more weekly meetings with Jeanine or daily trainings in Erudite. The woman had informed Eric that he wouldn't have to come to Erudite before the end of Initiation; in other words, he had one year for himself, to just enjoy independence and Dauntless life-style. He wouldn't have to think about Jeanine's project for a long time.

This project was beginning to be very annoying; he was fed up with the intense training and meetings and fake smiles and hypocrisy. He remembered how he used to like Jeanine when he was thirteen; it was also the age at which he had agreed to be part of Jeanine's project. Now that he had reached sixteen years old, he was doubting her whole project. Surely there had to be a more pacific way to convince people that Erudite was a better faction for government. And was Abnegation that bad at governing? Jeanine probably wanted power and that was all, Eric thought, rolling his eyes.

He didn't have to think about this whole bullshit for a year at least. Freedom was awaiting.

His attention was taken away by a girl from Dauntless who was staring at him and Tall Boy. She didn't even look away when Eric made eye contact with her. He knew they had to make an odd pair. An Erudite who had helped an Abnegation get on the train. That sounded funny. It would have looked normal if it had been the one from Abnegation helping others in.

"Alright, kids!" A man at the front of the car caught their attention. "We're here! You have to jump out now!" The second he finished talking, he thrust himself out and disappeared from their view.

Some of the Dauntless born kids whooped and rushed to look outside. One boy had already jumped out in a high pitched scream. Eric approached the door and looked out; they had to jump onto a roof which was at least one meter away from the train. And the in between was death. But he already knew that. Eric knew all of initiation's processes by heart because of Jeanine.

He looked over his shoulder and spotted Tall Boy cautiously approaching the door. "Come on!" Eric shouted and that seemed to wake him; he rushed to Eric's side. But then his body stiffened and his hands closed into fists. He tried to say something but Eric couldn't hear with the loud noises that the train and the wind made. "What?" he yelled.

Tall Boy shook his head, he looked down and let out a strangled noise. Eric frowned at him; was he afraid of heights? "Don't look down!" They had to hurry if they wanted to make it to the roof. "We need to jump now!" Tall Boy closed his eyes briefly and when they opened again they were full with determination.

"It's not that far, right?" He said.

Eric grinned. "Yeah." Then he stepped back to have a momentum and rushed out of the train, pushing hard on his legs. He landed at least one meter after the ledge of the roof –a great distance, he had to admit- and had to roll on his shoulder because of the speed.

When he straightened up, Tall Boy was landing harshly further on the roof. At least his long and large clothes would have protected his skin from scraping on the roof. Eric waited for him and they joined the others who were gathering.

Eric listened with one ear as Max, the leader, introduced himself and the way inside the faction compound; the hole in the roof. He had one wish and it was to jump first, he didn't want to wait for others to jump before him and it would be great to impress the others and show that he wasn't afraid of jumping. He heard Tall Boy inhaling loudly beside him and he realized he couldn't just jump and let him alone. Tall Boy was afraid of heights, he was sure of it. Eric wasn't selfless at all but he also really wanted to help him, for some strange reason. Maybe if he convinced him to jump right after him he would be fine; just like how they did with the train.

"Let's jump first," Eric whispered in the taller boy's ear.

"What? No way! We don't even know what's down there." But Eric knew what was down there; he just couldn't tell him.

"Come on, it's fine. I can go first and you jump right after me." Eric took him by the wrist and made to lead them to the hole but the other boy stopped him.

"No!" he hissed, "I don't like heights." He looked very uncomfortable and Eric's determination to help him only increased. There was something in his eyes that was just so honest and hurt.

"Then go first."

"What? I just told you-"

"Go first. I'll be right next to you."

"I don't know."

"Come on, or someone else will jump before us." This time Tall Boy followed Eric to the ledge of the hole. Everyone was watching them as they made their way there, he could feel their eyes burning his back.

"You know you can't jump together, boys," one of the adults who was standing next to Max said.

"He'll jump first," Eric nodded at him. He squeezed the boy's sweaty hand who gripped back. He was breathing harshly, bordering on a panic attack if Eric wasn't mistaken. "Look at me," he whispered to him. His eyes left the black hole and darted to Eric's; they showed fright. Eric squeezed his hand again. "Don't look away from my eyes. Let go of my hand and jump," he whispered so that no one else could hear.

"I-"

"Trust me. Let go," he said softly. The boy looked back down the hole for a second but then his eyes were back on Eric and he slowly let go of his hand. Eric nodded. The next second he jumped and fell down the darkness.

He couldn't help but grin stupidly at that. He had just convinced someone afraid of heights to jump down that hole. And an Abnegation at that! He was proud of himself.

Eric waited for a few seconds and then he jumped too.

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Tall Boy's name was Tobias. Eric had asked him when they were waiting for all of the initiates to jump down the hole, which had taken way too long for Eric's patience.

Tobias was staying close to Eric but the latter didn't mind. After all he was the only one from Abnegation among the initiates. There were six kids from Candor, three from Erudite, including himself, one from Amity and Tobias from Abnegation. Eric knew most of them from afar; he had seen them at school. He only knew the name of one boy from Erudite, Casper. He had been in the same math class as Eric and he was really bad, so bad that Eric remembered his name.

Their instructor introduced himself and made a short speech about Initiation and then he led them throughout the compound so that they could see a bit of their new home. His name was Amar and he was very tall. Amar had bright yellow hair, shaved on the sides and very long on top so that they fell on one side and sometimes on the other when the man flicked them. It was hideous to Eric. He also had a few colorful tattoos scattered on his arms and golden piercings were aligned on his left ear. Eric had already planned to get piercings and tattoos, he didn't know what or where yet, but it was part of being fully dauntless and it was exciting. But he was sure that he wouldn't end up in such a colorful hideous mismatched mess like Amar.

When Amar finally led the group to the dorms they had to choose beds. Eric and Tobias chose bunk beds on the far corner of the dorms. Tobias' was pushed against the wall and Eric's was right beside it.

They were given an hour to change and shower if they wanted before Amar came back to lead them to dinner. Eric and Tobias plopped down on Tobias' bed, their backs against the wall, freshly showered and dressed in black, their color now. They didn't talk, they watched in silence as the other initiates socialized. It was a comfortable silence so Eric didn't think much about the lack of conversation.

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AN: There it is, first chapter. The second one will be about 10k words.