AN: Thank you again for the reviews and follows. A special shout out to my friend Michaela18 who inspired and provided one of the drunken lines in this chapter. :)
She's everywhere.
If he can't see her, he can smell her, whatever the fuck it is she wears smells amazing and it feels like it's always lingering around the office. The last meeting he had was with the Dauntless leadership team, and it was all about Number Boy and he needs to get the fuck away.
He stomps up to the roof, trying his best not to light the cigarette dangling from his lips until he can at least get outside of the building. He replays Max's words in his mind.
Eric, you need to spend more time with Four. You're the only one on the current staff who's been through the fast track training process, and since he's been here for so long we can't imagine putting him through the same program as Tris.
'Why the fuck are we fast tracking him?" He'd asked Max, never getting a satisfactory response.
He'd argued with Max vehemently, saying that time in the faction should have no bearing on the length of training, and Eric's own fast track training lacked the depth and discipline of Tris's. He felt Four should be held to the same standard that Tris was, and surprisingly she had agreed with him. Tris had not been put into the fast track program, there was not an opening when she entered into for apprenticeship, and knowing that Octavia had over a year before she planned on retiring they took their time training Tris. There's no current opening in leadership, and no one pending retirement, so fast tracking Four made no sense to anyone, except Max.
He was Max's first choice, and he wanted him in seat before the young man changed his damn mind again.
"It's bullshit." A voice calls out behind him as soon as he has his cigarette lit.
"I'm surprised you're up here and not somewhere celebrating with Four." Eric growls as he exhales.
"There's nothing to celebrate. Got another one of those?" She asks as she approaches and he nods his head, passing a cigarette to her.
"Didn't know you smoked." He mutters.
"I didn't know you still did." She counters.
"I'm trying to quit."
She places a cigarette between her lips and Eric lights it for her. She inhales and exhales deeply, "Me too." She replies, "Thanks for letting me bum one."
There is silence between them as they stand side by side, smoking and looking out over the city. He watches her in his peripheral, and he notices that she's shivering a bit. He slips his jacket off and drapes it over her shoulders and she looks over at him and smiles briefly.
"Thank you." She says and he nods.
"Why do you have an issue with them fast tracking him?" He asks, "I was fast tracked."
"You were fast tracked because they had an opening and they needed someone immediately. We don't have an opening, they're creating a spot for him. It's disrespectful to those of us who've had to go through the full program while waiting for our rightful spot. I don't get why Max is doing it." She sighs.
"He's always been Max's first choice, so Max is going to do whatever it takes to get him in seat." Eric grumbles. "Why does he want it now? He's always turned it down."
"I think the entire thing is twofold. Max gets his pet under his nose, and Four gets to keep two eyes on me at all times." She replies and Eric turns so his body is facing her.
"You two having issues?" He asks.
"None that I want to talk about." She just shrugs and looks out over the city, towards the faintly glowing lights of the fence, "What did they have you doing out there?"
"Probably the same thing as Number Boy."
She looks at him sharply, and even in the shitty artificial lighting of the roof he can see the faint flush of anger on her face, "Why do you insist on throwing him in my face all the fucking time?"
"Because he's always there, isn't he Tris? He's your boyfriend, you'd think you'd want to talk about him." He counters.
"Sometimes I just need you to talk to me like a human being, not like someone you fucked once, is that too much to ask?"
"Oh so now we're acknowledging that we did fuck once?" He growls, "Let's talk about that."
"I don't want to talk about that either, Eric." She huffs out.
"So what exactly are you up here to talk about tonight, Princess?" He asks.
"Just answer the question I asked. What did you do out there?" She asks.
He drops his cigarette to the roof, his boot crunching against the gravel as he puts it out, "Max had me out on the front lines. Right out there, at the fence and beyond, keeping the city safe and our troops morale up." He points out to the horizon.
"He sent you out there?" She asks, her face unable to mask her horror.
"Yup. Didn't they send him out there too?"
"No. Max had him train with the guards in Candor and Erudite for a few weeks then they brought him back." She shakes her head.
"I guess when you're the victim of the crime you don't get the harsh punishment." He argues and she shakes her head at him.
"This is all my fault-"
"No, that shit between him and me, it was long overdue and would have happened with or without you being here. He's always tried to get under my skin." He shakes his head.
"Why do you hate him so much?" She asks.
"That's where you, and every fucking other person in this faction are wrong. I don't hate him. I don't necessarily like him, or how he has this holier than thou persona, but I don't fucking hate him. I have no reason to waste my energy on him. We've never gotten along, and I've tried to keep my distance with him because I don't want his pettiness to cost me my fucking job." He says before he lights another cigarette, "He's the one who won't just leave me alone. I mean, yeah the incident you and I had, maybe he felt provoked, but I've kept my distance from him ever since our initiation class ended."
"Our incident, Eric? Really? That's what you're calling it?"
"What do you want me to say? When we made sweet love? It was a quick fuck on the mats. Nothing else." He replies.
Tris turns away from him and shakes her head, "I thought you were going to kill him." She says quietly.
"I likely would have had you not intervened." He exhales a cloud of smoke.
"Maybe that's why I thought you hated him."
He looks over at her, "I don't. I blacked out and I have a temper." He sighs loudly, "I'm glad you stepped in."
She takes the cigarette from him and takes a drag from it before handing it back to him, "I am too."
They share drags of the cigarette for a few minutes, standing shoulder to shoulder on the roof. "You ready to admit that you missed me yet?" He asks and she laughs lightly.
"I can't believe you were gone for so long. They literally had him out of the faction for just a few weeks while they kept you out for half a year."
"I almost killed someone Tris, you and I both know what my state of mind was when you stepped in." He argues.
"You stopped though."
"Because of you. If you weren't in the picture at all, he'd likely be dead and I'd be executed." He argues.
"No, if I weren't in the picture at all that fight between the two of you wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry, Eric. The flirting with you was already pushing him to the edge, but when we had sex he went over-"
"Why did you have sex with me, Tris?" He asks.
"Eric-"
"Why did you let me fuck you raw on the mat of all places while you've been in a relationship with him since you've been here? Why?"
She doesn't get a chance to answer before the shrill ringing of her phone pierces the cold quiet. She grabs it from her pants pocket and sighs loudly before answering it.
"What?" She barks into the phone. "Yeah, and?" She says angrily to whoever is on the other side of the call.
Eric watches as she paces back and forth on the roof, hearing her side of an obvious argument with Four. She tries to hand the cigarette back to Eric and he shakes his head before heading towards the door.
He looks up at the camera, and the red light showing it's actively being watched. He holds up his middle finger to the camera as Tris calls out for him.
"Your jacket." She says as she covers the phone.
"Keep it." He says gruffly as he walks back inside.
He makes his way down the narrow hallway, once again frustrated, and once again the cause of his frustration is Four.
Maybe he does hate him.
He heads down to the bar, looking around for any familiar faces and he sees his good friend Zeke Pedrad across the room, sitting with his brother Uriah and the person in this faction Eric considers his best friend, Lynn Gonzalez. Zeke had gone through initiation with Eric and Four, and although he was also friends with Four he and Eric had always been much closer. Through Zeke, he had also gotten to know his younger brother Uriah and his best friend Lynn, two initiates from Tris's year.
Zeke waves him over and he makes his way across, grabbing a seat at their table and exchanging hellos. He has a glass in hand in no time, and he quickly orders another pitcher for the table.
"I'd heard you were back but I've yet to see your ugly mug before tonight, how the hell are you?" Zeke asks.
"No worse for the wear." Eric shrugs.
"How was it out there?" Uriah asks.
"A lot." He shakes his head.
"Which group were you actually assigned to?" Lynn asks before pouring herself another beer.
"Two thirty nine." Eric asks and Lynn sets the pitcher down slowly, her dark brown eyes widening at Eric.
"You're shitting me." She gapes at him.
"Nope." He shakes his head and takes a long sip of beer.
"That shit was true? About you and Four fighting?" She presses.
"Yeah, it was bad." Eric sits back and takes a deep breath.
"I'd heard he's starting leadership training next week, are you two going to be able to get along?" Zeke asks.
"We won't have a choice. If anything happens between us again, I lose my job. That prick isn't worth it." Eric replies.
"Amen brother." Zeke says as he clinks his glass to Eric's.
Later when the brothers are chatting up a couple of women who look familiar to Eric, and he's lost count of the beer he's consumed, Lynn plops down next to him with a fresh pitcher.
"You really okay man?" She asks and Eric shrugs a shoulder in response, "For what it's worth, she missed you."
"Who?" Eric asks, feeling a little hazy.
"Tris. I know it's her causing the issues with you and Four, and she confided in me about what happened between you and her, and how that caused the rage during that fight. When you were sent away, she was a mess." Lynn replies.
"Probably because she lost her fucking boyfriend." He replies.
"No. It was you. She told me, Eric. She told me what had happened between the two of you. She didn't regret it, but she didn't know how to process it. She was upset that she caused the fight, and that you lost control, and that you were gone for months when he was let back in after a few weeks."
Eric grips his glass so hard his hands begin to hurt. He wondered how she was while he was gone, and this is the first time he's had a glimpse of what she may have been feeling.
"She's with Four, so no matter what she felt she made her fucking choice. Why are you telling me this?" He asks, "I came down here to get away from her. I don't want to talk about her."
Lynn rubs her shaved head nervously, "Sorry."
"No need, it's me who's being an idiot." He shakes his head, "What's the deal with them?" He gestures towards where Zeke and Uriah continue to talk to the women, one of whom he recognizes as Shauna, Lynn's older sister.
"She and Zeke have been dancing around an actual relationship for months now. The other one who is all over Uriah is Marlene." Lynn sighs.
"As in your ex Marlene?" Eric raises an eyebrow.
"Since when did you give a shit about gossip, Coulter?" She smirks at him.
"I don't usually, but you're one of my few friends in this place, and from your letters I could tell that girl really fucked you up." He replies.
He was cut off from the faction when he was out at the fence, but Lynn went above and beyond to send him letters disguised as official security updates. She was a part of their security forces, although her position kept her working in the leadership wing, and she took a chance by reaching out to Eric via these updates, knowing wherever he was out there the paper correspondence would eventually make its way to him. He appreciated her, more than he could ever let her know, and even though he couldn't write her back her constant updates and unspoken understanding meant so much to him.
Lynn watches as Marlene interacts with Uriah and she takes another long drink from her glass, "She did," She takes her glass and holds it up to Eric, "Here's to the women we'll never fucking have, may they one day realize their mistakes in letting us go."
Eric clinks his glass with hers, "I'll drink to that."
She and Eric drink for several more hours, just catching up and getting shit faced like old times.
"You've been staring at them all night, just have a conversation with her." He nods over to where Marlene remains at their shared table, waiting for Uriah to come back.
"She's having fun with Uriah..." Lynn slurs, "She won't listen to me anyway."
Marlene turns towards them, scowling at Lynn, "I can hear you, if you weren't so sloshed you would realize that."
"I don't care, you can pull your ass out of your head!" Lynn shouts, trying to stand up while a laughing Eric pulls on her shirt to get her back in the booth.
"Settle down tiger, maybe talk to her when you're sober." He laughs as Marlene makes a face at them and leaves the table, "Maybe she does have her ass in her head, her face looked all kinds of fucked up."
They both burst out in laughter, and Lynn pours them another beer. They continue drinking before they both finally head to their apartments after closing the bar down. As he's stumbling back to his apartment, he catches a flash of dark hair, and suddenly Four is standing right in front of him.
"Get the fuck out of my way, Number Boy." He slurs.
"No." He replies, "I've been waiting for you to get home, and now that you're here you and I need to have a chat."
"We have nothing to talk about." Eric replies as he tries to push past him. Four shoves his shoulder and Eric stumbles back a bit.
"We have a lot to talk about, especially now that we're co-workers." Four replies, "Let's start with why you fucked my girlfriend."
"Because she wanted me to. Next question."
"I need you to stay away from her."
Eric laughs out loud, "I know you watch her every fucking move, Four, and when you're doing that you must have seen that she's the one who seeks me out. Have you given her the same little speech?"
"Don't worry about what happens between me and my girlfriend."
"I don't. Now move." Eric warns.
"Are you going to stay away from her?" Four asks again.
"No. She's my co-worker, and I'm not entertaining your psychotic tendencies when it comes to your obsession with her. You and I both know she can do a hell of a lot better than you. Now get the fuck away from me and my apartment before I have you removed."
"I know about Jeanine. You need to be careful." He warns and Eric reacts, even in his hazy state.
"Are you seriously threatening me right now, Number Boy? Are you really telling me you've abused your power in the control room to eavesdrop on sensitive leadership meetings that you are not currently privy to in your position?" Eric seethes, "Because if you are, I will have your ass thrown out of this faction before morning."
"You have no power over me and it drives you insane, doesn't it?" Four asks, pushing his chest into Eric's and Eric can smell the liquor on the other man.
"Four, stop!" Tris's voice rings down the empty corridor, but Four pushes harder against Eric.
"That's twice she's saved your life you pathetic piece of garbage," Eric whispers to the other man.
"Stay away from her. We've worked too hard for you to fuck all of this up for us." He slurs.
Before he can further process anything that just happened, Tris has ripped him away from Eric and she shoves him to the other side of the hall. Eric can hear her shouting at him, but he doesn't care, he's tired of being in the middle of their shit. He opens his apartment door and slams it shut behind him, walking briskly to his bedroom in a desperate attempt to once again distance himself from her.