amandalbsantos I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Don't worry I don't think I could bear it if Eric and Avery didn't kiss before Fear Landscapes, I mean we haven't even got to Capture the Flag yet! Also, loads of smoldering EricxAvery scenes to come, along with a few new obstacles!
"What can I do for you sir?" I ask in my usual polite tone, but I clip the end of the sentence without realising it, and I know he notices my slight detachment. He stares at me a moment, before motioning for me to move into the room.
"You need to raise your strength in your arms, even though you made the distance today, you were compensating for lack of strength by angling your shoulders higher, which lowered your accuracy." Eric says curtly, moving me by the shoulder over to the bar he'd seen me doing leg acro exercises on.
"Pull ups, do as many as you can, stop, then do it again but with one more pull up." He says shortly, and I nod, a distinct tension between us, and not the type I'd felt before. However I follow his instructions, and curse to myself as I can only manage 6 on my first run. That's around average for a fit ish teenager. I can guess he's scowling at my back as I shake my arms out before reaching up for the bar once more.
It takes time, and I can hear the thuds of a punching bag behind me, but I know he's watching. I manage 8. Then 9. Then 10. Slowly but surely I add another on, but my arms are weakening. After an afternoon of knife throwing, they were already a little worn out, but this type of strength exercise is what I really fail at. The time between each pull up gets longer as my stamina wanes, and I hear the punching stop as I'm on my run that requires twelve. I barely managed eleven the last round, and I've only got to five out of twelve and my energy is running out. I hear Eric mutter something to himself, but I can't register it as it only pushes me to try harder. I can't break this tension between us, if I fail to do fourteen he'll start berating me, which will lead to talking. I don't think I want to talk right now, I want to work out until I can't feel it.
I let out a grunt as I get to eleven, and focus on gripping my hands to make sure they don't let go as my arms burn my brain out, and I pull up.
Just as I get up, I lose control of my hands and I collapse onto the floor by the unexpected fall. My legs are in a heap as I breath deeply, waiting for the oxygen debt to be paid.
"You should've known I didn't mean for you to collapse. I thought you rational enough for that." His low voice interrupts me as I squint to open my eyes.
"Did you? I wasn't aware you were making assumptions of me." I say, hiding the bitter tone in my head. When I manage to look up, he's smirking, but there's a dangerous gleam in his eye.
"Of course I was. I thought the first time I started training you conveyed that. I decide what happens." His voice of authority is back, and I decline his offered hand to stand.
"Even out of training?" I dare to ask, and I know I'm swimming into deep waters. "I wasn't aware who I sat with or who I talked to was a problem."
He takes a step forward. "Of course it is. I can't have you busying with the wrong sort."
"The wrong sort? Many people have told me you're the wrong sort. Maybe I've been blindly trusting you." I reply and he scoffs.
"Of course not you know better than to go into anything blind." It's true, and I hate him for it. "The wrong sort is who I say it is."
"You compliment my common sense then completely contradict yourself. I can tell who the wrong sort is, and it isn't Leon." I say, and he glares at me as I introduce names. If we're going to talk, it might as well be straight up.
"Leon is exactly the wrong sort." Eric growls.
"And why would that be?"
"He's trying to use you to-"
"Incorrect, I was using him Eric." I snap, and he stops, his eyes trained on me. "I was using him, for my own means of distraction, and used flattery to make sure he didn't feel bad about it."
"You have nothing to use him for your duty is to me." Eric says, though less confident than before. I read between the lines, and I can hear his words from just the night before echoing in me. Were you making that noise when that Dauntless born did the same? … Only I can touch you like this.
"It doesn't seem to go the same way with you. That's the way this works, you train me extra, I give you the perfect initiate you wanted." I say, my eyes flashing back to silver hair.
"Don't you get it just don't tempt him!" He draws his words out as he moves even closer and I look him straight in the eye.
"Flattery is a weapon Eric, especially against men. Just a couple of words and all will be forgiven. I don't need to feel anything, to want anything, to flatter him. I have my own motives."
"Motives for practically fucking him in the centre of Dauntless?" Eric asks, eyes ablaze with fury.
"Motives you know very well were brought on by you, Eric." I point out and he stops.
"I think its pretty obvious no one here can make me do anything I wouldn't wish except you. You can't complain about he being involved with other people if I'm not complaining about you doing the same. It's called hipocracy. I'm well aware there's nothing here, but I'm only human." I say, trying not to give away the roller-coaster of feelings his brought up in me.
"I, I can't explain now." I jump at the sudden quietness of his voice, but it's just as intense. "I'm off again tomorrow. There's a patrol to an outer region of factionless."
I can't say anything as my heart just drops an extra 20 feet. He's leaving, again? I can just remember telling him I was glad he was back in the haze that was last night. Perhaps it's just my subconscious missing him.
"How long?" I manage to ask grudgingly., and he pauses on his way to the door.
"…could you wait? I don't know how long." He replies, and I'm confused. Patrols always have a scheduled return date… He's not talking about the patrol. I want to slap myself as I know the words that will come out of my mouth. I just talked all about how I wouldn't change my social decisions because of him but… why is he being so sincere.
"I won't hang around with Leon much. I'm not even close with him." I say the words, but there's a harsh quality to it, something that says I'm not giving into this.
I don't manage to meet his eyes as he disappears out the door, and my shoulders slump in relief, yet frustration. After this morning… I don't want to feel anything for him. I know it's not there. That's what my rational mind, full of common sense is telling me. Yes, my brain.
"Let's agree never to go out before any day with training in it, please!" Ben moans the next day as we start our daily run led by Four.
"Or, you could just remember not to take any dodgy drinks, and then you'll be fine anyway." I say dryly. I won't lie to myself, I'm in a sour mood. I hit my head on the bunk bed beam when I was climbing down, and I slipped on the floor after showering, and fell on my arse. Plus all that god damned talking yesterday. Anyway, I stay in line with Jay and Ben, not bothering to push forward to Four, who's eying me warily.
"God how did you hold so much drink? For your size… you should've been throwing up night and morning." Jay says, and I raise an eyebrow.
"Meh." I shrug. "I've always been pretty good, but I drink fairly regularly, so I'm used to it."
"Regularly? I swear you haven't been out since we joined Dauntless apart from two nights ago." Ben asks and I shrug again, a mischievous glint in my eye. I stay awake all night, what can I say. My mind's so sharp I can pick up on every bloody thing in my surroundings, and my mind. It's nice to blur out my emotions every once in a while. Well, less than a while.
"Well we won't be drinking again anytime soon regardless. It's fights tomorrow. I hope Four matches me up with someone nice, I'm really not in a mood to fight." I say just loud enough for Four to hear.
Jay chuckles. "Yeah, but there's no way Eric's going easy, he really has a bone to pick with you."
"Nah, he's not here." I say, then curse to myself. Fuck, the hell is wrong with me lately, it's little things that give pretences away, I'm not supposed to know he's away.
"What do you mean?" Jay continues, as we start to pull away from Ben.
"He's not going to be in training. He told me yesterday he was disappointed he wouldn't get to see my innards spilt all over the mats." I say dryly, and Jay seems to buy it as he laughs, and stumbles in consequence. "I better get up to Four before he gets pissed because we're running slowly." I grumble, before fastening my pace up to Four.
We stay in silence as usual before we're well out of earshot, and he opens his mouth.
"Did he really say that? From what I understand he's not very sadistic about you." Four says, a suspicious glance in my direction.
"No, but the others don't need to think the instructors are biased." I say, and Four continues to stare. "An instructor is biased." I correct with a sly smile as he just shakes his head.
"…I'm guessing he's told you not to talk to me about his bias." Four says complexly, and I smirk.
"Actually, he hasn't said it implicitly, but I believe his glares suffice." That earns me a chuckle. "Though the bias isn't very strong really, I just do extra training, more running, a lot more running." I say, in my usual routine of a part truth. He seems to notice though, and I feel as though I can trust him at least a little more.
"Do you know how long the outer region patrol is?" I ask, merely letting him know the extent of which Eric tells me. Four takes it happily, a quiet thanks in his eyes.
"I think it's five days. Axel's on it as well." Four tells me and I nod. Five days is a while, he was away for interfaction relations for four though. "Right, once we pass Lily, I'll keep up our pace. You can sprint round and if you manage to reach me I'll let us slow down till the end."
I raise both eyebrows at him at the challenge. That's a long sprint. Though sprinting is my preferred, why run a long way if you can take the train? But I can't refuse, so as soon as we become side by side with Lily, who I note is now only a couple strides behind the two Erudite girls, I sprint as fast as my limbs will let me.
The bad thing for me is that I have no idea where Four is. Its likely for him to have kept our exact pace, he seems to be brilliant at pacing, so that means by the time I reach Ben I'll be halfway round from him. My legs burn and burn as I reach Ben, fairly aware that I only have 3 laps to reach him in my sprint. Because of that I don't even cast a glance at whoever I pass, merely focussing on whatever's ahead of me, and with half a lap to go, I reach him just round a bend.
"I got here! I got here….!" I gasp out, clasping onto Four's t-shirt to slow him to basically a fast walk by which he's dragging me to the end. "No… legs hurt… rest…" I mumble to myself.
"That's the point, you need to run while your legs hurt if you want to get better…" Four chides me and I glare at his playful hit.
"Shove off." I say pointedly and I collapse onto the floor as usual as we reach the training room while he simply walks around checking the equipment, not stopping for the whole sit down, deep breaths, hands on knees thing. God damn him.
That morning he tells us that we're strength exercising, because of which my arms groan but in my head I'm happy. I'm not just going to sit around while Eric's gone, I'm going to get my arm strength up so I can pull a decent punch in tomorrow's fights rather than just kicks. In fact, I've never used punches in fights before, just used my arms to protect my body, but it's time to change that. Scowling at myself, I follow the exact pull up exercise Eric taught me, this time starting simply at 6 to stretch my arms out. I manage to once again get to twelve, but instead of collapsing, I drop to my feet comfortably. It's a small change, but it's already improvement.
I spend the rest of the morning doing arm exercises, and carrying on when my arms hurt just as Four said, until lunch. After lunch it was punching bag practice, and it may have just been my eyes, but the bag was swinging further than before.
I sit up calmly, rolling my shoulders out in the cool air, relishing the dull ache. That was good. My arms weren't painful, they weren't numb, they just ached. Ached of improved strength. I slide down the ladder and shake Lily awake, who blindly starts to shuffle after me for our run. Of course, after the first lap I leave her, but I'm pleased to note during an hour I lapped her twice rather than thrice. It seems she was feeling good today as well.
There's a taught silence at breakfast and as we walk to the training room, Jay and Ben maintaining most of the conversation with myself helping to ease the rest of the tension.
Jay, Ben and I are all comfortably ranked, at 1, 4 and 2 respectively, but Lily is quite obviously in danger. Sure, she may just be a slow start, but no matter how much she improves, everyone else is improving too and there will be a point where there's no way she could improve enough to get through. And Beth, though ranked sixth in the middle, she'd be lower if not for Kapser, also she's been extremely lucky with opponents. She's won all of her three, but one was against Isobel last week, the week before she lost against Tom, but managed to hold out for a reasonable amount of time, and the first fight she was against Lottie. Her wins were easy wins, but it's unknown how well she'll do against the larger boys.
As we walk in, all our eyes scan the board. My eyes train straight to my name, next to the Erudite girl, Isobel. I cast my eyes to here, and I feel bad as her eyes are almost shaking with fear. Meanwhile, Ben's up against Beth. I feel for them, I really do. We may not have seen anything extra since, but those two were very snug when we went out, and even though nothing seems to have come for it, it's obvious they both want to. We were bound to have an in house match by now anyway. Lily doesn't seem to have much luck either, her name right up against Tom's. He seems the nicest of the bunch, but is reasonably strong. And last on the list, is Jay, against third ranked Zander. He's a better shot than he is a fighter unlike Jay, but he's been seriously working on his strength recently.
"Avery, Isobel, in the ring." Four says tiredly, barely bothering to look up. However the rest of the room seem to look up as I step into the ring, waiting for Isobel to follow. She steps in, but I don't attack immediately. I would on instinct against an obviously weaker opponent, but she doesn't even have a block up yet. But, as soon as she does…
"Agh!" I whirl a heavy punch right into her block, beelining for her forearms in her block. It may be a little selfish of me, but I'm going to use this to test out my punching technique, which luckily means I can hit her where it won't matter as much. I keep up my defence as well as I can remember to, but find myself losing it as she never makes any hits harder than a little shove.
I hit her comfortably all along her arms in her block she manages to keep up, and she keeps on stumbling down, after which I wait for her to get up. Despite my show last week, I don't want to be first ranked, at least not at this point. I may have kind of screwed it up but something's telling me to attempt to keep quiet, which involves me not winning too quickly.
Once an average amount of time has passed, I punch her ribs from under her block with a duck, and as she falls I move on top of her, reaching down to her shoulders. I have a few choices. Either I can choke her till she passes out, but far too dangerous and she definitely has nothing to deserve it, I could hit her head to the mat, but then she'd get another massive bump and probably a concussion, or I could be sneaky.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders and neck then as Ilift her struggling upper body off the ground, my hand finds her carotid artery on the side of her neck up to her jaw. I apply pressure, and hide my actions from Four and the others with my body, before dropping her, seemingly out from a blow to the head.
When Four circles my name, I lift her up in my arms and carry her off to the side, lying her down as her friend Lottie goes in to fight. You see, applying pressure at the baroreceptors in the carotid artery can make the body think it has high blood pressure, so lowers it making them faint. With enough control, it isn't very dangerous at all, as I released just as she passed out but before the lack of blood supply to her brain could do much damage. And because she only just lost consciousness…
"…hmmm?" Isobel mumbles awake, and as she has her eyes close I help her sit up before she realises whose crouching in front of her.
"Go to the infirmary, they'll have a paste for the bruises on your arm." I say shortly, and after making sure she's fully awake I walk back to the others.
As I guessed, I barely bother to watch Lily get beaten, out with a blow to her head and just sit by her body lying on the floor as Beth and Ben move up. I can't hear the words they're eyes are speaking, but it looks to me like a lover's quarrel. They hit and miss before Four yells at them, by which Ben weakly hits her side but as she winces his defence drops and he doesn't do anything to stop her from closing in and landing a handy hit to his temples. In reality, the result was all wrong, and Ben would be paying for it. Beth won't even benefit much either.
But what was really interesting, was the ending. Jay and Zander faced off, and it was closer than I'd like to admit. It seems, Zander really had taken a preference to Eric's strong style of fighting despite his slight build, and his two punches that landed on Jay before he got a single punch in really rattled him. He even fell from the second, but was quick to get back up before Zander could press the advantage.
Jay's always taken a little while to warm up though. Around a minute and a half after the start he started really fighting back, and it went on and on and on. They constantly exchanged punches but both were landing them on each other's blocks. It must have taken double the time mine and Isobel's did, by the time Zander was distracted, by and excellent fake of Jay's right hook which had Zander sailing straight into Jay's right fist to his temple. The one hit had him out.
All of the matches were won by knockout, and people were starting to realise it was the best way, just as Eric had stated at the beginning, to win a match. No one had conceded once.
A bit of a shitty ending, but once more another chapter. I don't actually know if anyone reads these, but yes, Eric and Avery are taking a short break (take note on short, he'll be back next chapter regardlessXD) I decided to bring in the whole jealousy argument because even though I started out with the idea Avery liked Eric's possessive nature (which the fuck she does) there's no way I could portray her as so submissive considering she's such a strong character, AND I've figured out what's going to happen! Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this, please review as always!