I'm so sorry I skipped a week's update! Unfortunately I was caught up in a West Side Story production this whole week past, and rehearsals the week before so I've had no time to write, but I should be back on track now!
NikiLC I'm glad the confessions went well, I tend to get a little worried about the characterisation as I myself hate it when my favourite characters become OOC, but I'm thankful you enjoyed it!
Garber Baby Once again I'm so glad you enjoyed it, last chapter was definitely the gateway for Eric's heart! I'm so glad it worked out, and I'm really thankful for the continued feedback as well!
Dear Charlotte,
Thank you for trusting me! Ha ha, it is completely in my intentions for Eric to only be gentle to Avery, again in this chapter he was a little nicer than most of the time, but he'll go back to big bad Eric we all love before you know it! We all know what it's like to be busy, and I'm so glad you're still enjoying it!
TheCloakedShadow
We're caught in a comfortable silence as he takes me through the empty dauntless halls by my waist. I wonder where he's taking me, but I know he won't tell me if I ask.
"Stay close, it'll be a little cold." He murmurs into my ear as we reach a large metal door. He wrenches it open and then sure enough, we're on the roof of the compound and the train tracks aren't far away. The sun is low in the sky, set against the grey
sky, and I breathe in the scent of clean, open air. The lights of the city surround us, and the movement on the streets below is minimal.
Barely seconds after stepping out, the sounds of the train reach my ears and Eric is pulling me towards the tracks as we start into a jog parallel to the tracks. As the train reaches us, Eric jumps first from behind me, before I take my own large stride
to catch the handles. Eric pulls his arm around my waist and I let him keep me there hanging from the doorway as the train keeps speed. I can't keep the smile off my face as I laugh, one of my feet dangling in the open air. Eric was right, it is slightly
cool, but his arm blankets around me.
"It's this stop." Eric tells me as we reach the telecom tower, and my eyes widen. It's an awfully small amount of landing space, but Eric doesn't give me time to think it through, so I act on instinct, my body rolling onto the criss-cross of metal poles,
absorbing my impact. As I stand all I can do is smile as Eric gazes down at me with a similar rough grin.
He takes me by my hand and I realise we're going up, further and further as we climb the stairs of the telecom tower. The metal is painted red, and my mind focusses on each rung of the massive structure before we reach the highest platform.
As I gaze out upon the city, my eyes are alight. The sky is covered in reds, oranges even purple as the sun can barely be seen on the horizon over the wall. My eyes squint for each detail, each persons actions across the city, but I fail to meet the details.
My eyes glance towards Eric. Had he planned this? He can't have, I'd only just told him I wanted to go outside. I'd never imagined he'd do anything of this sort… its special.
"Why did you want to be outside? He asks, moving over to me letting his arms fit around my waist from behind. "I got the feeling you liked the compound."
"I do. You can always find the people you need to, yet there's always a place to go if you don't want to be found…" I tell him honestly, but I look behind my shoulder to meet his eyes. "But there's something about the open air, it just puts everything
in perspective for me. It's not like I want to explore the world or anything pointless, it's just nice to remind myself of everything else out there."
We share our gaze as I admire his face in the yellow light, bringing out the warmth of his skin and eyes. Those eyes… it's like they'll forever haunt me.
"I'm surprised, I didn't take you for this sort of thing." I tell him, quirking an eyebrow as he plays with my hair.
"You mean the romantic sort? You know very well I'm not." He says bluntly and I can't help but chuckle.
"I know, it's quite hard not to notice." I say. "What's this for? I have to agree in that I'm not the romantic sort either, but for some reason this isn't bothersome at all."
He sighs, before answering. "… I put in so much work for this, perhaps I felt it needed a little more justice. Maybe make you believe me more." I smile again, and he just watches me.
"Believe you?" I question his words, shaking my head. "You'd never need to do anything to make me believe you."
"That's just because you can tell if I'm lying." He mutters and I grin.
"That's only because you're so incredibly obvious when you lie!" I tell him. "Like when you tried to tell me Leon was just the wrong sort, instead of just saying you were jealous." What's wrong with me, I've never been so bold to him. He scowls slightly
and look away frustrated.
"That's because back then he was just the wrong sort. I couldn't have just told you I was jealous, no matter how much I just wanted to tell him you're min-" He cuts off.
He did it again. He almost said I was his. I'm surprised once again, I wouldn't expect him to hold that back. Is he trying to… perhaps… no… show me he respects my independence? That night, when we argued, he was trying to restrict, no control my movements…
is he trying to better that?
He's not meeting my eyes, and he has the same vulnerable look on his face the last time he cut off. My chest is almost burning, I hate this look on him, I hate him vulnerable, I just want him to feel safe again I-
"I'm yours."
It's barely a whisper, and I don't even register saying it, but he clearly does. He stares at me, eyes wide with surprise, lips parted. I waver under his stare, was that too much? We may have been at it since I arrived here, but that was only three months
ago, maybe a declaration was too soon, too early-
But I'm not about to take it back.
"I don't know what you're so surprised at. You think I'd let just anyone do what you've done to me? You think I'd wait for anybody else? I didn't have a choice to where my feet took me last night, this was the only place I'd let myself go. And you were
the only person I'd let myself see."
My heart pounds as it reveals itself, but it was only fair. Last night he'd been so caring, and this morning when he made himself uncomfortable to explain to me, it's about time I did the same.
"You're mine." He murmurs, almost to himself, before he turns me around in his arms to face him, and my breath catches. After all this time…
He has one arm around my waist, but one hand has come up to tilt my head upwards.
And his lips meet mine.
I don't even remember the first instinct I'd had to kiss him, let alone dreamt of it, but now with his lips gently caressing mine, it's overcompensating any thoughts I could've had. I melt against him, kissing him back softly, letting my own arms tangle
round my neck, finding the security in his hold. His thumb strokes my jawline, as his other arm around my waist only tightens.
To my surprise, he pulls away. But when he does, the sun has gone, and it's only the night sky gazing down on us.
"I'm done waiting." He mutters, before reaching for my lips once more, but it could not be more different.
Whilst our first was gentle, soft, caring, this was hungry, passionate, wanting. His hands no longer stroked with care, but instead his hand ventures up beneath both myhoodie and t shirt, and his other soon joins. I return the fervour, my hands
by his neck reaching up to lace into his hair, pulling and tugging harshly in his hair. He reacts in kind, and a moan leaks through my lips as his bites down on my lip. His tongue teasesthe corners of my lips before slipping inside, letting
his own mouth silence my moans.
His hands slide down against my skin from underneath my top, before rounding against my butt and lifting me up suddenly. I gasp and break our kiss as he winds my legs around his middle, but it doesn't take long for him to kiss me again. I tighten my legs
around him, locking my ankles, but all of a sudden, the reality of snogging him at the top of the telecom tower hits and I notice our imbalance as Eric shifts every time I move against him.
"What's wrong?" Eric asks as I cling to him. "You're not afraid of heights are you?"
I shake my head, biting my lip slightly. "No, just I don't think we're reckless enough to fall off the telecom tower just because we get too…" I struggle to find a word, and Eric snickers.
"Think you'll turn me on so much I stumble off the side?" He teases, and I blush lightly, but he surprises me once more. "Well, it's not far from the truth. We can carry on later, the trains will stop soon, we need to get back."
He doesn't let me down though, and merely turns me around so I'm on his back, and moves to the stairs with me clinging on around his waist, taking extra care as he climbs down the stairs.
"Hold on." He says shortly as he speeds up down the last set as the train is already about to pass. I clench my hands around his neck, holding on tight and secure as his muscles move underneath me in the seconds he jumps. He grabs onto the train with
one hand and both feet securely on the doorway, swinging us into the empty carriage.
The train ride was longer than I remembered, but then again on the way there I had the whole city to admire. This time, it didn't take long for Eric to pull me onto his lap and put his lips on mine, pulling my hips to his roughly.
"Marks, Eric." I warn lightly, though it doesn't have much enthusiasm as he licks down my neck. He growls, but nevertheless his teeth don't come out until his mouth is much lower.
I regretfully pull his head back lightly as I see the dauntless compound coming into view, and he lifts me off his lap barely seconds before we jump, and as soon as we're back in the compound he looks around with his usual stare, trying to hide his obvious
arousal.
But once we've reached actual people, we've controlled ourselves and I walk orderly behind him, as an obedient initiate. We still take the long route to his apartment however, and he closes the door happy we didn't bump into anyone of importance.
"You'll be cleared from the infirmary tomorrow morning, and you'll go straight to training. I don't know how much the other initiates have been informed, but withhold any further information." Eric tells me, and I remember I haven't seen anyone other
than Eric all day. I didn't even think about them.
I look to the time and see it's 9 oclock. I'd usually be training at this hour, and now that I'm well rested, I'm even more restless.
"Could I sneak out of the infirmary for a few hours?" I ask lightly, and Eric quirks an eyebrow.
"You want to train?" He questions, reading my mind.
"…yeah. I also don't want Lily or Jay and the others to suspect somethings up. I have a feeling they've visited the infirmary. I need to give a pretext." I explain to him. He stares at me, thinking it through, before nodding. I stand, but as I walk past
him he grabs me by the waist.
"Be back by 12, I don't like waiting." He says into my ear, and I'm reminded of his wet tongue slipping over the shell of my ear. I shudder and hold his gaze breathless as I go through the door.
12321
"Avery? Avery!" Lily's voice is distinguishable as I enter the dorms, where only Lily, Jay and the two erudite girls reside.
"Hey." I say in greeting, and Lily comes up and hugs me on the spot. I lightly pat her back.
"Are you alright? We went to visit you in the infirmary but you weren't there!" Lily gushes, and Jay observes with careful eyes.
"You really think I would stay there as soon as they'd done their tests?" I drawl. "And I'm fine."
"What happened? All we've been told is that you, Zander and Mickey were in the infirmary, and Kasper was dead." Jay say, his brow creased.
"There was a fight." I say bluntly, keeping details to a minimum. "It ended with Kasper throwing himself in the chasm. I don't know why, I just got caught up in it."
"So you're all fine?" Jay asks, hand on my shoulder and I nod.
"Just a lightly sprained ankle really." I say, leaving out my head injury, and the abdomen bruising. "I wanted to go train, I've been stuck in bed all day. Join me?" I ask Lily. She nods, but looks sideways at Jay.
"She told me you've been training her in the evenings. I barely even noticed with all your elaborate excuses, thank god you didn't go to Candor." Jay tells me and I smirk.
"I'm disappointed, I was sure you must've noticed something." I mock him and he grins as we walk out.
"Maybe you can have a light spar with Lily, give her a different sort of opponent. She's been fighting me this entire time, and none of the rest of the initiates fight the same way." I tell him, and he nods in agreement.
"That sounds like a good idea. You up for it Lily? It'll just be like drills." Jay pipes up, and Lily only looks slightly doubtful.
"Okay then."
"Right then, how does Jay fight, what's his style?" I question Lily, and she answers reasonably quickly.
"He has the advantage of size, and he's quite strong but still fast, his reflexes are quick." She wonders and I nod.
"Anything else? Weaknesses?" I ask. She's missing his main weakness. Jay looks at my grilling slightly surprised.
"Um…er…" She stumbles, and I give her a tight smile.
"You haven't watched him enough yet. He's fast, but static. He has a strong stance, but doesn't move much around the ring, as his reflexes are strong enough to block incoming hits." I tell her.
"Jeez, I didn't even realise…" Jay mutters to himself, and intrigued grin on his face.
"You figured out a strategy?" I ask Lily, in full knowledge we'd talked about how to tackle this weakness before. Thankfully, she nods.
"Right get going." I say, as soon as we enter the training room, and they move to a mat. "Warm up first though. A good ten minutes."
Meanwhile I move to the bars, ready for pull ups. I'm not stupid enough to do any exercises that involve my ankle, so for now I'll go with arm exercises. Even though I've been doing them to increase the strength of my punches, they've had a positive effect
on the acro I use I think, I'm much more stable in a hand stand, and I can manoeuvre my body much better.
After five rounds of fourteen I let myself down, and move to watch Jay and Lily sparring. It's surprisingly good, Lily's taking in Jay's weakness, moving around the mat a lot to make his angles harder since he doesn't move around a lot. However, it's
also bad.
At first I thought it was just because she was a weak fighter, but since she was always fighting me I must not've noticed as much. She's holding back. None of her punches have the strength I know she has, her arm strength is easily stronger than mine.
Her lunges don't have the same momentum, her arm doesn't reach all the way back before a punch. And as a result, Jay is holding back.
"Stop for a second." I say, and look Lily dead in the eye.
"Stop holding back, you dimwit." I say harshly. "I've been noticing it for a while, but you can't win a fight if you don't want to."
Lily splutters slightly, obviously put off guard by my sudden accusation.
"It's just a spar, we're meant to hold back-"
"No, you're not. That defeats the whole point of training." I say pointedly.
"No, Jay's holding back too, why am I the only one being-"
"He's allowed to hold back." I cut through, and she looks confused.
"What do you mean? I thought you were saying not to hold back-"
"Jay has to hold back, because if he didn't you've been in the infirmary ages ago. He's stronger, so in a spar he has to hold back. That's why Four always tells us to pair up with someone of equal strength."
She looks confused, and bothered.
"Okay, I'll try harder."
She always says that.
But as my mind is distracted and she walks back onto the mat, the hair on the back of my neck prick up.
In a flash, I've grabbed the arm reaching around my shoulders, and turned into my attacker. My foot comes up to block his other hand before I spring back onto my hands, letting my legs fly into his torso before I'm back on my feet, pushing harshly on
his shoulders before having him in a headlock.
"You bastard Axel!" I yell fiercely, but laughter bubbles through my voice as soon as I hear his flowing chuckles. "Why are you laughing? If I hadn't realised it was you I would've kicked you for real!" I yell at him laughing, shoving his head away as
he wrecks with laughter.
"I was checking your reflexes, honestly! You were hidden from me all day!" He accuses pointedly, and I roll my eyes.
"Avery that was amazing! You must've been training so much since last fights!" I move my head to face Lily, who looks incredibly surprised.
"Is she dim?" Axel asks me, pointing at Lily.
"No, she just didn't see Avery kicking butt her first fight." Jay explains.
"Ahh. Of course, you banned yourself from kicking. Well, I won't be interrupting your training further, I have to report to Max anyway. See ya later!" Axel says, before jogging off.
"Honestly, that guy." I say shaking my head. "Right back at it you two, we need to train."
12321
"I'm back." I say softly as I enter Eric's apartment. I had told Lily and Jay about going back to the infirmary for now.
"How was training?" I hear Eric's voice from the bedroom, and I pull off his hoodie as I enter, dropping it in the basket.
"I didn't overexert myself, mainly watched over Lily and Jay sparring." I say with a sigh before he comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around me.
"Why the sigh?" He murmurs, playing with the hem of the t-shirt, as well as looking shamelessly down the low v neck.
"How do you get initiates to want to fight each other?" I ask him curiously. He'd know this.
He frowns slightly, but answers. "We force them to. You don't have another choice."
"I mean how do you get them to really fight, and not hold back in fear of hurting the other. Surely friends end up fighting." I explain further, as his hand starts pulling my t-shirt further down, exposing my bra to his view.
"How did I get you to stop holding back?" He asks slyly.
"Let me clarify; without methods of seduction." I tease him back, and his head rests in the crook of my neck as he chuckles.
"Make them want to hurt the other. Provocation can get you far." He murmurs, as his tongue slips out to knead my collar whilst his hands occupy themselves with touching my body. I make a sharp intake of breath.
"Know a good way to provoke the reckless brave type?" I ask, my words caught in my throat as his fingers tease the waistband of my jeans as he undoes the button.
However, he sighs, and lets his hands settle around my waist.
"Insult their bravery. In fact, they tend to react badly to people holding back against them, not giving a worthy fight and that garbage." He tells me and I nod as he pulls me over to his bed and holds me standing in front of him as he sits down.
"As much as I'd like to keep you here to fuck every knight, we've run out of reasons for you not to stay in the dorms." Eric grumbles, and it's very clear he completely means not wanting me to leave.
"So I'll have to move back to the dorms." I say logically. "It's not that much of a problem, I spend enough time training with you not to be deprived of your company." I try to sweeten him up.
"True." He murmurs, pulling down my jeans, eyes lingering at my underwear. "But annoyingly, I don't want the first time we fuck to be marred by that bastards bruises, and I also want to fuck you in my bed."
The repetitions and just the way he says fuck is just making me extremely uncomfortable. I can't believe I didn't realise though, he's so possessive he growls every time he sees my stomach.
"Don't leave to go anywhere tonight. And don't leave in the morning until I say so." He mutters gutturally as he pulls me down onto him, rolling us under the covers before lifting his hand to turn the lights off. The darkness doesn't stop him though,
as I fall asleep with fingers wandering and swiping up my skin, lighting me on fire.
My babies are back! As I said before, this chapter was SOOOO FLUFFY at the beginning, but I realised after Eric's confession, Avery had to as well, and I'm a sucker for scenery and sunsets. I think I also managed to prolong this fic becoming M rated, despite how many times I lapsed into less than appropriate writing in this chapter XD. But I am happy with my plan of action. We're going back into training straight away next chapter, so we can really get up to speed with the initiation process. Also, I need to figure out where to put the paintballing match, because I actually have no idea where it comes in the initiation chronology. Anyway I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, read and review as always!