AN: Another mass shooting last night, this time right at home. A little numb, very tired, and overall terrified of what can happen any time we're out in public anymore. Hug your loved ones a little tighter today, I know I will. I hope reading this chapter helps you escape as much as me writing it does.
It was their first time in an apartment, but to be fair it was Veronica's place and not Eric or Tris's. The day that he'd had Roni bring Tris a shirt was the first time the two women were able to really talk about Eric's proposition, since he'd only talked to them individually. She was surprised to hear that Roni had already suspected there was something going on between him and Tris, and she was even more shocked to learn that Roni had been asking him to be their third for weeks now, even though he always denied anything was even going on.
Tris was slightly uncomfortable when they'd first arrived at her apartment, but she'd known Roni for years and the other woman was attempting to put her at ease. She'd invited them over to her place tonight for drinks, and they'd spent a couple of hours loosening up with whisky and weed.
Eric noticed that Tris's no kissing rule was applicable to Roni as well, and even though his friend was confused by it, she respected her wishes. He just watched the two of them at first, seeing the hesitancy in Tris to initiate anything with her until Eric had joined in. It was obvious to Roni that Eric and Tris were extremely comfortable with each other, so she let him lead, and she and Eric both focused on Tris.
Tris had no experience with women at all, her refusal to kiss anyone had kept her out of the normal drunken hookups that Roni had seen before, and when Roni was kissing her way down Tris's body, she'd taken one of Tris's nipples in her mouth while Eric moved to a position so Tris could suck his dick. Tris could feel Roni's hot mouth working her way around her body, and she was surprised when she felt the other woman's fingers toying with the waist of her leggings, beginning to pull them down.
Eric watched as his cock disappeared into Tris's mouth, and his eyes flitted to where Roni was rubbing Tris on the outside of her panties.
"Do you like it?" He asked Tris as he gently moved her hair back from her face. He loved seeing her like this, with her lips wrapped around his cock, while another woman was about to bury her face between her legs.
Until he noticed the uncomfortable look in her eyes. He pulled away from Tris, and she screws her eyes shut. Eric leans closer to her, "What's wrong? Baby, talk to me." He urges.
She whispers one word in response, "Knife."
He snapped into action immediately and tried moving Roni away from her as well, but it had the opposite effect since Roni now thought he wanted her. When she tried to kiss him, he pulled away again, and it just caused her to get more aggressive.
"You know you want me, come on Eric, we used to have a lot of fun. Please fuck me, she can just watch us first, it'll loosen her up." Roni cooed at him and he saw Tris sit up, pull her leggings up and wrap her arms around her knees.
"Stop Roni. Go cool down, give her and I a minute okay?" He'd said quietly to Roni and she sighed loudly as she pulled on a shirt and her underwear.
"We should talk, come with me." Roni said to Eric and he looked back at Tris, who had motioned for him to go.
Eric pulled his sweats on and slung his tshirt over his shoulder as he followed her out and closed the door, "What the fuck, you could tell she wasn't into it!" He hisses at her.
"She shouldn't even be here! Let her go home and let's finish what we started. I can even call Amber over if you want a threesome that bad." She replies.
"She's the only reason I'm here right now."
"This isn't you. You're not here for a hesitant former Abnegation. I can tell her to go and we can continue. If you don't want Amber, I can easily get Dave over here." Roni said quietly but he pushed her away gently and shook his head.
"The only reason I'm here is Tris." He replies.
"Eric, no. You're settling and this definitely isn't you," She shakes her head.
"She's the one who's settling. She could choose anyone in this faction to help her to find herself with. She chose me, she trusts me, and you need to back the fuck off." Eric replies icily.
"This is serious between you two." Roni says while shaking her head, "I've told you, I don't do couples, this shit always happens."
"She and I aren't a couple." He retorts.
Roni snorts, "Okay fine, you can try and keep up with that bullshit that this is just causal, but you're a fucking fool."
"What are you even talking about?" He asks, glancing back down the hallway where he knows Tris is in a room waiting for him.
"This isn't casual at all. I've known you for a long time, and I'm seeing something I've never seen before. You're in love with her."
He looks at her like she slapped him, and even though she can tell he's pissed, he also doesn't deny what she said, "Roni, enough. I'm going to go talk to her now. Just give us some time and we'll be out."
"Fine." She shrugs.
He turns back to look at her, "She's upset about this, can we please stick to the original agreement to not talk about it?" He asks her.
"Of course we can. I wouldn't do that to you. We've kept each other's secrets, what's one more?" She replies, "I know you're not asking for it, but I'm giving you some advice. You need to figure out what you're doing with that one. You're not a relationship guy, and you're entirely too young to get tied to a girl who was raised to believe she should be married with kids as soon as she turned eighteen."
"Roni, fuck off with that shit. I'm getting her out of here."
"Eric, you can get as pissed at me as you want, but when you finally will admit to yourself what's really going on between the two of you, you're going to need someone. Are you truly ready to love someone, especially someone who will never understand you sexually? You two might be enjoying this little teacher and pupil dance you've got going on, but what are you going to do when that girl tells you she's in love with you? When she wants to be married? Kids. You ready to be tied down to one pussy for the rest of your life? You ready for no more dick?"
"I don't need this right now." He spits.
"Why don't you stay here with me? Let her go, for tonight, and possibly for good. I understand you, I always have, and you and I together could be exactly what you need. You came back to me for a reason, I can be who you come home to at night, and I won't give a fuck who you hooked up with on your way because I'll have done the same thing." She advances towards him and he steps away quickly.
"No. Don't get this twisted, I was never here for you. Just her."
"Your loss." She shakes her head and watches as he heads back to her room.
He finds Tris on the bed, fully dressed and facing away from him. When he approaches, he can see she's crying and he squats in front of her.
"What can I do?" He asks as he takes her hands in his.
"I'm just stupid. I can go and you two can finish." She replies.
He wipes the tears from her face, "Absolutely not. You and I will go and we can talk this through, come on."
"Eric, just stay." She argues and he pulls her off the bed and wraps his arms around her.
"I go where you go, always. As soon as you feel like leaving we will head out." He says quietly and she nods against his shoulder.
Roni had offered Tris a half assed apology when they were leaving her apartment, but in the same breath once again invited Eric to stay. It pissed him off even further that Roni was still being shitty to Tris, while simultaneously trying to get him to cross lines he now realizes never should have been entertained. He's known Roni a long time, and he absolutely considered her a trusted friend, but he realizes he made a mistake in who he trusted with Tris.
Eric left with Tris, and he realized he was following her to the tattoo shop, but she didn't protest him being there beside her. Tori gave them a look when they walked in together, but based on how quiet Tris was and the way that Eric was seemingly trying to comfort her she kept her comments to herself. Tori still didn't understand what was going on between them, but for now it seemed like they needed to be alone. When Tris unlocked the door to her room, Eric followed her in and he heard her lock it behind him.
"You don't have to do this, you know that right?" Tris asks him.
"I want to do this."
"Why though? You could have stayed, you could have just had sex with her, I mean she was begging you for it." She replies.
He hates that she won't even look at him, so he moves behind her and wraps his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"I don't want to have sex with Roni. I went to be there with you. This isn't just me needing to get off, I have a hand for that, this was something that we were doing together and if either of us wanted to stop we stop." He says to her.
"But why?"
"Because I wasn't there to fuck Roni, I was there to be with you, and to fulfill something you'd wanted to try. When I saw you were upset all I wanted to do was make sure you were okay. I thought I could trust Roni, and while I know I can trust her to be discreet, I now know I can't trust her to treat you with the respect you deserve. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I'll be better." He says.
"What's in this for you? I get the sex is an incentive, but why are you here trying to calm me down? I freaked out again, okay? This time it was because I didn't like what was happening. You don't have to fix this-"
"Yes, I do. I care about you, Tris. This isn't just some fuck buddy shit, when I saw you were upset all I wanted to do was make sure you were okay. I don't want Roni, I don't want some throwaway hookups, I want you."
The air feels warm around her, hand having him so close makes it incredibly difficult for her to think. She tries to move, but his arms just tighten around her and she says nothing for several beats.
"This is dangerously close to being a relationship, Eric. We've said this entire time that we didn't want that." Tris says, but he can feel her body relaxing against his, and he feels her fingers trailing over his hands that are resting on her torso.
"We've also said if either of us were having one-sided feelings we'd end it. That's not what's happening here." He says firmly.
Tris feels his hands threading with hers, "You're still saying that there are no feelings involved?" She asks quietly.
"I didn't say that at all." He replies.
"But that means... you're implying-"
"I know what it means, and I know what I'm implying, can we just drop it?" He says in a frustrated voice.
"Eric, we need to talk about it. It's what we agreed to when we started this, that this was not a relationship and we'd need to end if it got to that. You've said those exact words to me, Eric, that if this started to turn into anything resembling a relationship we needed to stop it before someone gets hurt." She presses.
"Not yet, Tris, please. I don't want to talk about ending things right now, I'm not ready for that and I don't think that you are either. Can we at least agree to that?" Eric asks.
"Okay." She says, trying to understand everything he's not saying.
He presses his lips to her neck and she sighs against him, "I wish you'd just let me kiss you."
"You are kissing me." She replies with a chuckle.
"You know what I mean." He replies and then begins tickling her, and she actually squeals.
"Eric!"
"Oh this is hilarious, you're ticklish!" He says as he chases her around her chair.
"Eric I am not responsible for any injuries you receive as a result of these unwelcome tickles!"
"I've sparred with you before, I'm not afraid." He grins at her.
"Can we go do that right now?" She asks and his eyebrows raise.
"You want to spar?" He asks and she nods, "Lets go."
Tori is with a customer when she hears Tris and Eric pass by her open door, and the woman she's tattooing utters "Holy shit."
"Did I hit a sensitive spot?" Tori asks.
"Oh it's not the tattoo, it's Eric and Tris, did you not see that?"
"He's here all the time, she's his tattoo artist, and they seem to actually be friends." Tori replies.
"They were holding hands when they walked by." Her customer replies.
"No fucking way, you're sure?" Tori asks and her customer nods, "I'll be damned."
"There are lots of rumors about those two, and I just saw it with my own two eyes. I gotta tell Brandi." The woman says as she begins to send a text to her friend. Tori just shakes her head and continued her work, deciding that Tris will talk whenever she's ready.
Eric and Tris walk the familiar path to the initiate gym, and they separate their hands before entering. Inside there's a smattering of both members and initiates practicing their form. There's an almost hush when Eric enters, and Tris pokes his side when she sees the terrified looks of the initiates who recognize who he is.
"You're scaring them." She whispers when they're out of earshot.
"Good. They need to toughen up. It worked for you, didn't it?" He asks and she nods.
They tape up their hands, and when he notices her form he's actually impressed. He and Tris had sparred quite a few times since she'd been a member, mostly just basic demonstrations for the initiates to show that in fighting style differences didn't matter. It was something Max had dreamed up when he realized a demo between Eric and Four wouldnt necessarily be as impactful as seeing a smaller female member taking on a larger male fighter.
Tris was in excellent shape, and she kept up with her training, but the scrawny girl who transferred is nothing like the woman she is today, and seeing her spar with Eric who has at least five or six inches in height and likely over a hundred pounds on her proves that size and physique didn't matter. It's one time that Eric had to admit that Max was right, the initiates always reacted with shock and horror when they'd see Eric and Tris in a ring together.
Eric circles around her and when they finally begin to fight it's a familiar dance. They're both intense and intelligent fighters, and soon they've drawn an audience around them, including the familiar face of Four himself.
He watches as Eric and Tris fight, and his suspicions about their involvement are confirmed when he notices how Eric is being kinder to her, and even gently correcting her form at times. The leader he's known for years wouldn't be caught dead down here with her, Max had to force him every single year to participate in the demonstration with Tris for the initiates, and even then he's always been rather cold and focused. Watching him with Tris today, he can see he's not here to show off, he's here to help her work through something.
Four has seen Tris and Eric hooking up around the faction when they thought they'd been out of the view of cameras, and even though he and Tris had been broken up for months it still bothered him to see her having sex with Eric. He's not an idiot, she'd flat out told him when they were together that she wanted more adventurous sex and he'd wanted no part of it. It just bothered him that the person she sought out to explore her fantasies with was Eric Coulter, but seeing them together around the faction has caused more than just Four to question the leaders intention towards his tattoo artist.
Especially when he's seen them on the cameras outside the faction, holding hands and acting like lovesick teenagers.
"Stop playing with me, Stiff." Eric says as he tries to punch her and she ducks him again, and when she jumps on his back there's an audible gasp from the small crowd around them.
Four watches as Tris uses her strong legs and thighs to maneuver herself around to his front, while simultaneously bringing her body down to pull him to the mat. She's straddling his neck, while holding both of his arms down with her full body weight.
"I'm not playing, Nose." She replies and Four is surprised when he sees Eric smile.
He's just as surprised when she jumps off of him and does a curtsy before throwing a towel at him and scampering off to the shower.
Eric and Four make eye contact when he's upright, and he simply nods at the trainer before he turns to follow Tris. Four is confused by their behavior, but he also knows it's not his business, and he turns towards one of the initiates when they call his name.
Eric thinks about joining Tris in her shower stall, but with the amount of people in the training room he chooses a separate stall, next to hers, to be safe.
"Nicely done, Tris" Eric says and she glances over the wall at him.
"Thanks. It felt good to get some of that energy out." She smiles briefly at him before looking away.
"Are you okay?" He asks and she turns her back completely to him.
She lets the spray wash over her face, letting the warm water mix with the tears she can't help from falling.
"Tris?"
She feels her shoulders shaking, and the next thing she knows he's in there with her. He's wrapped around her and she lets the tears fall.
"I'm so sorry baby. I hate that I let you get hurt. I hate that I hurt you."
"It wasn't you. I shouldn't have been there. I just wasn't into it at all." She admits.
"It's okay not to like everything we do. You were perfect tonight, you used our safe word and we got you out of there." He says quietly.
"I heard what she said to you." Tris replies, "She's right, I'm just a sheltered former Stiff, and you shouldn't be wasting your time with me."
"You're not. You are one of the most Dauntless people I know. Everything you had to overcome about the way you were raised, and who you are today, you're the furthest thing from a fucking Stiff. And, if you heard what we talked about then you heard me tell her the only reason I was there was because of you. You heard me tell her that the only person I was focused on was you."
She'd also heard Roni accuse of him being in love with her, and his refusal to even acknowledge what she said. No response is still a response, and she's extremely confused by it.
"Eric, I need to know why you're here." She says quietly.
"In your shower?" He asks and she scoffs at him.
"I'm tired of you doing this." She says and he pulls her towards him.
"What do you want to know?" He asks in a serious tone.
"Why are you with me?"
"Because I want to be. You have your mind made up that it's just about getting laid, and somewhere in that head of yours you're also convinced I should go back to Roni's apartment and finish with her. I don't want her," His eyes are almost blue in the misty light of the shower, and they feel like they're burning into her, "I want you. Not for just sex, this, just being with you and having a conversation with you, it means more to me than anything else that we do, Tris. I know you want to talk about things, but I need to get my head right before I can take this conversation any further. I don't want to fuck this up. Can you give me time?" He asks.
"This scares me." She admits.
He cups her face in his hands and tilts her chin up to look at him, "It scares me too." He says as he moves one of his hands towards her mouth and traces her lips with his fingers, "We both need to figure things out. Neither of us are ready."
She can hear people in the locker room and she tries to pull away. He doesn't let her, and she finally relaxes in his arms and allows herself to just feel. She's wrapped in his arms, and her arms are wound around his back and she just lets everything go. Maybe this thing with them is serious, maybe it'll just fizzle out, maybe they'll crash and burn and never speak to each other again but for now there's nowhere else she'd rather be. They've both danced around their feelings for each other, neither knowing how to deal with them, and neither willing to let the other go.
He's not wrong, because she's also not sure if she can actually be in a relationship with Eric. She knows he's very open and fluid with his sexuality, and she may be fooling herself to think that they can just flip a switch and be in a committed relationship. Is she having fun with exploring her own sexual wants and likes with him? Yes. Does she want this type of relationship to evolve? She's not sure. Would she have to share him for the rest of their time together? If she were to allow herself to fall, would she ultimately be hurt because he's afraid to commit?
These are all of the questions she keeps trying to get answers to, and Eric remains a mystery.
They finally get out of the shower when they realize they're not alone in the shower stalls. They both realize they could have easily been seen, but neither seem to care as he stays put and dries off in her shower stall before going to his to get dressed.
"Are you hungry?" He asks, ignoring the stares and whispers from others in the room.
"Yeah, I could definitely eat." She replies softly.
"Diner?" He asks and she nods.
When they're both dressed, they head out of the locker room together, and Four makes eye contact with Tris, who quickly looks away. He knows her well enough to see that something is bothering her, and he watches as Eric keeps his hand on her lower back as they walk out of the gym.
Just before the swinging doors close completely, he catches a glimpse of Eric moving his hand to hers and threading their fingers together as they walked down the hall. He sighs as he cleans up the room in preparation for tomorrow's training class, and makes a mental note to reach out to his ex very soon to make sure she's okay.
And to find out if she knows what she's getting herself into by being involved with Eric Coulter.