I'm back in the swing of things... I hope...
~Forgot the smart arse disclaimer last time because it'd been so long that I forgot how to fanfiction~
Twenty Seven
Four watches an excited Kella bounce as Eric explains why they where all on a train in the middle of the night instead of being in their beds sleeping.
"So... You're all wondering what we've dragged your sorry arses out of bed for? The answer is, War Games." Four would've let them chatter between themselves a bit longer, to build up excitement and adrenaline. Eric had a different method of setting adrenalin running through the initiates veins. The ice in his glare was enough to shut them all up and get their hearts pumping at the same time. "Capture The Flag is a Dauntless tradition as old as cake; as old as Dauntless itself. It is taken very seriously, so shut the fuck up and listen carefully. You will be split evenly into two teams, Four and I will be your captains. Each team will hide a flag. The objective is to protect that flag, while also capturing the other teams flag. Weapon of choice? Automatic training rifles and neuro stim darts."
"How do they work?" Four flinched before the shot even went off, he knew it was coming.
"Simulates a real gunshot. All the pain, with none of the mess. Lasts a few minutes, then you're right as rain" Eric looks like he's had about enough of the teens already, so Four steps forward and takes over instruction.
"While this is a very important Dauntless tradition, it's also held at this stage of your training for a good reason. By now, you're all a bit worse for wear from your sims. A game of Capture the Flag is just the thing to cheer you up and keep you going for the rest of initiation. Give you a taste of what it means to be Dauntless" Four tries to make up for Eric's sour disposition by being as pleasant as he can be.
"Right. You can pick first" Yeah, right.
"Yeah, right. I'm not that stupid. You pick first, we'll jump first."
"I'll take the psycho." The rest of the Dauntless Born are divided between them while they take lighthearted jabs at each other. Then they start on the transfers.
"I want Rose" Four was thinking of how fast the little ex amity could scale a tree and almost missed the sour look cross Eric's face
"Fine. Stuart." Four grins at him as he realises he just unintentionally screwed with Eric's plans. Four gets his squad off the train as quick as he can without anyone hurting themselves. He takes off at a jog with the rest trailing behind him as soon as he's clear of the train. This year's capture the flag was going to be fun.
oOoOo
Four debated about comforting the broken man on the ground for a full five minutes before he skirted around him and went to hunt his better half down. He knew, as soon as they disappeared from the main group, that they'd be having a row. He'd made sure the rest of them got on the train, then doubletimed it back to where he'd noticed them split. It didn't take long to find Eric. When he'd first noticed the sound of broken sobbing, he'd headed away from it, thinking that there was no way Eric would be able to stand that noise without shooting the person that was making said racket. He faltered, however, when he heard a familiar frustrated yell in between sobs.
And so, there he was, looking down at Eric's somehow shrunken form, rocking and crying on the ground in an alley. He could've stopped and tried to comfort him, but he was pretty sure he deserved the misery he was suffering at the moment. And he doubted he would be well recieved anyway. So he set out to find Kella.
It didn't take long. She was three buildings over, on the roof of course, staring at the sky. He looked up at her from the alley below and sighed.
"Please don't make me come up there to talk to you. I really don't do so well with heights..." his words where spoken more to himself than her, as she was about five stories above him, but that didn't seem to stop her hearing him. She stood up, wiped her face, and monkeyed down the rickety fire escape to land softly in front of him.
"Is heights one of your four fears then?" She surprises him with her insight.
"Yes, actually, it is." Four doesn't ask how she knew, he just puts it down as another of her quirks. "What where you doing all the way up there anyway?"
"Listening to Eric" Her voice is strained, and it's obvious she'd been crying too. "I don't want any of the factionless taking advantage of him when he's not paying attention to his surroundings." Her answer doesn't surprise Four in the slightest.
"Why don't you just go see him and work it out?"
"I was too angry. I said some things that I regret."
"I'm sure he deserved them."
"He did. I still wish I hadn't said them though." Her sheepish smile is enough for Four to see that she's calmed down enough from whatever the rash leader had said to her to make her flip her lid. It must've been bad for him to actually feel guilty over it, Eric doesn't usually concern himself with such emotions.
"C'mon, Kella. Let's go put the sore loser out of his misery." She smiles a cheeky half smile at him as he wraps his arm around her and gently guides her back to where Eric is still slumped on the ground.
"He hem" Four's loud throat clearing doesn't seem to affect Eric in the slightest. He just continued to cry in deep, wracking sobs that had to hurt his chest, surely.
"Eric..." Kella's whisper, however, had the attention of his icey blue eyes immediately.
"Kella" the name is spoken as a prayer, a rosary that he repeats softly while stumbling toward the object of his worship. Four steps to the side as Eric gets closer, not wanting to be in the middle of things if they go pear shaped. From this angle, he can see the tears running down Kella's cheeks like rain, and he wonders how much longer the stubborn woman would've stayed away if he hadn't come to find her.
"I'm sorry. So sorry..." that's all Four catches of Eric's apology as he reaches her, buries his head in her hair and continues to mumble. Eric's arms are wrapped around the little woman so tight that Four is a little worried about Kella's ribs. Kella's not much better though, holding Eric's head to her like he's going to disapear at any moment.
Four figures that they're as alright as they'll ever be in this fucked up world and backs away quietly, before he see's anything that warrants bathing his brain in bleach to rid himself of the memory.
oOoOo
Two days later, Four is sneaking back into the compound as Kella is sneaking out. They nod at each other in passing, both aware that, while this tunnel isn't wired for picture, it is most certainly wired for sound. Four walks another fifty steps or so before he thinks to question Kella leaving Dauntless on her own. Usually, either himself or Eric went with her when she went exploring. He wasn't sure if Eric was aware of her wandering around the city on her own, and she had been wearing her fatigues and webbing, which was suspicious as all hell. He had two choices. He could go and find Eric and dobb her in like he had with the party, and possibly cop another broken nose when she found out he had dogged her again. Or, he could tail her, and possibly end up with another broken nose when she realised he was following her. The fact that, if he went straight to Eric, he wouldn't know where she was going was what decided it for him in the end, and he turned around and headed back the way he had come.
He followed her all the way to Erudite, all the while hoping that she was just passing by on her way somewhere else. Four watched her walk straight through the front door with a heavy heart, then turned around and ran like the wind back to Dauntless.
oOoOo
"Why the hell didn't you stop her?" Eric's roar went straight through Four's head. "You where there! Right fucking there! Why, Dumbass? Why would you let her walk in there like that? Why would she do that? Why wouldn't she tell me what she was planning? Why? Dammit, why?" Eric's voice quieted the more he spoke, until he was hissing at Four and Stuart in the front seat of the truck Kella had modified. In the back was a squad, and behind them a troupe of trucks full of Dauntless soldiers.
"She's too damn fast to catch. S'not Four's fault, man. She's doin' what she needs to do." Stuart is a man of few words, and today is no exception. He goes straight back to staring out the window with the same forlorn expression he'd been wearing before he'd spoken.
"But why didn't she tell me, Tobias?" The sound of his birth name startled Four out of his worried stupor. He whipped his head around to look at Eric in the driver's seat. He seemed so out of it, he wasn't sure he'd even realised what he'd actually said. He didn't have time to ponder more though, they turned a corner and the road in front of them ended suddenly at an Erudite road block.
"The fuck!?" The confusion in Eric's tone is completely gone with his next statement. "Fuck it! We're going through it or over it, but we're getting to Erudite!" Four turns and opens up the window to the back of the truck, but Eric starts yelling before he can draw the breath to warn the soldiers in the rear. "Buckle up, Bitches! Shit's about to go sideways!" Four grips the straps Kella had installed above his head as Stuart grabs the passenger side panic bar with both hands.
Four isn't quite sure how they do it, but they half crash through, half climb over the barricade and end up on the other side, more or less in one piece.
"Someone's been paying attention to Kella's lessons" Four mutters as he swallows his stomach back down to where it's meant to be. Eric's manic, feral grin scares Four more that his roaring ever had.
"Let's rock some tune-age" Eric's Australian accent wasn't far off of Kella's broad, bush twang. A driving bass guitar and drums fill the air, shortly joined by a distinctive, snarling scream.
"No mercy for the bad if they want it. No mercy for the bad if they plead. No mercy from the bad if they need it. Oooh no mercy from me. Tell no truth and tell no lies. Cross your heart and hope to die. Never give what you can't take back. Scratch like a cat. Oooh inject your venom, it'll be your last attack"
And that was when they crashed through the gate into Erudite.
oOoOo
The song is "Inject the Venom" by AC/DC
