Kuppcake I'm glad the training exercise was interesting- I just thought of it off the top of my head so it may have been a bit dodgy. Thanks for the continued support by the way!
Anonymous Guest 1- Yes, Max has ruined two of the good moments in this fic so far! More Eric coming up!
Anonymous Guest 2 – I'm glad you're enjoying them!
Anonymous Guest 3 - rules maybe rules but as Avery believes- bias exists regardless! I completely agree about Isobel- I'm chucking her asap, but Lily has a lot more to show- I liken her to Tris quite a lot. And though Avery training so much and with Axel is against the rules, no one knows about it ;) it's the ways of reality, let alone fiction- I'm glad the story was interesting enough for you to read so muchthough!
Dear Charlotte,
Once again we are united in that I just got so tired of Lily I had to end it! There's more of rebuilding her relationship this chapter, and I'm so glad you liked the action! I always wonder whether readers can actually visualise what I try to put into words! And you really understood my hints about the dauntless-born, there's something with them really interesting that isn't in the original books this chapter! Not to mention this chapter goes straight ahead with Eric- I missed him so much!
I'm so grateful and glad you are still supporting this fic!
TheCloakedShadow
Once they are further away, I turn back to the others.
"Let's never do this anywhere they'll be in the future ever again." Beth says with a sigh.
"That was crazy. Just when we were getting used to Eric being out of training, I've never been so thankful to paperwork my entire life. But that…" Ben widens his eyes dramatically.
"We should've stood up for ourselves, showed we have fire! I just feel pathetic after that." Lily says, her eyes irritated, but fiery. "Anyway, we're not finished, are we?"
As soon as she says the words, I sprint off and hear the scurrying footsteps right behind me as I push and push and push my limbs forward.
Shit, now I need a hiding place. But I'm so jittery from that encounter, I can't, I…
His eyes were burning into me.
I just miss touching him. I miss being around him.
My eyes flicker shut for a moment as I run through the hallways, barely keeping an increasing distance between me and them.
I know I'm exhausted, and can't keep this up, atleast I don't want to. I need a place to lose them, somewhere they can't find me, at all. Shops and the pit are off limits, the dorms they'll just find me…
The perfect answer is right in my head, but I know it's fuelled by my sudden need. I don't feel like being alone.
I know they still run to follow me, and Ben seems to leave to try and predict my route to cut me off, but my hearing is adept, and I can hear them.
They think I'm going to take an extremely indirect route to the dorms, or the training room.
No chance.
My feet wander down the path I know better than any other, but travel so rarely, as I manage to burn my legs to put just over a hallway's distance between us. Hopefully I can slow them by taking routes they don't know, and lots of turns, but there's one
/problem.
Eight digits, I need options. Fuck, what the hell has eight digits?! Is he going to be witty, or impulsive, or… Am I overthinking him? Would he really have another passcode only I could guess? Is he that sappy? I'm either going to luck out or completely
/fail, in which I need to be able to run before they see what I was trying.
Ready after taking multiple false turns, I finally go down the right one, and reach the door.
Nope definitely not.
Fuck.
Last try before I have to get out of here. I'm screwed, he'd never use something like-
The light turns green and I press the door open and close it as quickly as possible yet as silently as possible.
"Come on, she keeps on disappearing! Where even are we?" Jay's voice is evident, as Beth and Lily are slower.
"I don't hear her anymore, but I swear she wasn't that far in front!"
"She spends way too much time in these hallways. Who could ever know how to not hit a dead end with this?"
I take a deep breath out, my eyes closed.
What the hell was he thinking? A password like that?! This is so unlike him, it was that one night, the one night where we both confessed that we were so sappy, but he…
Maybe it was his way of making it hard for me. I never would've got if it I weren't in a desperate mood.
I finally open my eyes in the dark apartment, reaching for the light switch as it turns on, and I almost groan. His clothes are littered on the sofa, and there's a half-eaten sandwich on the table top, along with plenty of plastic food packaging. He's
/an orderly person, tidy even. What could even make him do this? If it's work…
I'm tired, and my body is pulling me to his bed so I can just lie there in comfort. I never thought homesickness was a thing, but the automatic pull of my body to anything him is… overwhelming.
I move further into the apartment, picking up his clothes lying on the sofa and floor, and glance up at the clock. It's 3 past 10, I won. God, I really am petty.
My mind turns off as I put his clothes in the wash, bin the rubbish, and wash the plates, which lets me happily fall into his bedroom. His bed is unmade, but there aren't any creases in the sheets. He hasn't even been sleeping here, if at all. Moreover,
/there isn't even a book on his bedside.
The comfort that filled me as I entered the apartment has now left me, filled by a darker feeling of discomfort. I realised he was tired when I saw him, but this… portrays something more than losing a couple of hours of sleep.
Having nothing left to do, but not having the mental strength to go back to the dorms, like I know I should, I shrug off my leggings and top into my bralette, and curl up in his bed, resting, waiting.
If he ever will come back to sleep.
12321
My eyes fly open as I hear the slight noise of the door opening, snapping me out of my rest. The light on my watch tells me its 2:26 and I frown as I hear movement from the living area as it's light is turned on. I slide the covers off me but move to
/pull on my baggy v-neck t-shirt as I reach the doorway.
Just as I get the top over my shoulders and onto my body, my breath catches. He looks just as tired as he did 5 or 6 hours ago, but his posture is loose. That doesn't stop him from crossing the room in record time, giving me no preparation as his arms
/curl around my waist and he lifts me up to slam his lips into mine.
There's nothing I could ever think to do to stop me from melting against him, lips in a complete frenzy as the longing to kiss him, speak to him even see him has built up in the last few weeks. Patience is not something either of us have as my own arms
/grab his shoulders, fingers twisting into his hair and my legs lock around his waist whilst his arms rub soothingly over my back. It's an overwhelming comfort, his touch and his hold, after the frustrating problems washed over me, even his scent-
Alcohol. Whisky even, its really, very strong. As my mind processes it, Eric doesn't hesitate to press me against the wall, eradicating any space between us as he presses against me.
"Eric-" I try to get his attention but it comes out in between a gasp and a moan as his teeth grab at my neck and a hand grasps at my chest.
"Fuck." He curses gutturally before his teeth clamp down on my collar pushing more towards the pain rather than pleasure, and I find my voice.
"Eric, how much have you been drinking- ah!" As I get through the words his eyes focus at my level voice and he shoves himself away from me and I barely manage to land on my feet.
The only sound is our deep breathing as his eyes drape over me and we survey each other in our own respect. But the question in my head is desperate- why did he stop?
"Do you always intend to… encourage me to break regulations?" Eric murmurs, his words slurring slightly and I just blink up at him. "At least try to… cover up."
In response, I pull my t-shirt into the normal positioning, and he just chuckles.
"Fuck I will never get tired of you in underwear…when it gets to mental stage, just spend all your free time here in your sexy bras… please…" Eric mumbles along uncharacteristically, though his welcoming smirk easy on his lips,asjust how much
he drunk eludes me. "Awshit I shouldn't be thinking
about this… fuck what's something I hate… Avery help me or I'll fuck you up against a-"
"Four's been exceptionally helpful in your absence." I say warily, complying with his plead to give his mind images that will turn him firmly off. "He gave me the full details of Kasper's death."
I regret my choice of topic however, as it was the only thing I could think of short term, and he seems to agree. In fact I almost cringe, though I'm not mentally bothered by what happened with Kasper, Eric is most certainly desperately against it.
"…next time you need to cockblock me, think of something less infuriating." He mutters drowsily.
"Have you eaten today… did you eat yesterday?" I ask as he stares at me with a firm smile.
"Breakfast." He says shortly, and my jaw tightens.
"How much did you drink?" I ask softly.
"Quite a bit."
"Whisky?" He holds my gaze, and it doesn't surprise me he's slumped against the wall but still swaying slightly and his words are still slurring. If he drunk 'quite a bit', on an empty stomach…
I walk closer to him and he almost tries to back away before I take his hand and pull him into the living area.
"Why did you go out drinking?"
"Max suggested it."
"Even after working so much?"
"People… people trust me not to be affected by work."
I sigh lightly as I push him down onto the sofa before giving him a firm stare to stay put as I walk over to the kitchen and grab a full pint of water and the most edible food I can find in his kitchen which turns out to be a box of cereal, which surprisingly
/Eric happily starts eating, which only confirms how drunk he is.
And as soon as he's finished downing the pint of water, he grabs my waist and pulls me into his lap and starts stroking me.
"How much longer is there…?" He murmurs softly as my mind tries to push back against his warm firm figure but fails miserably.
"We're halfway, three more weeks." I tell him, finally nuzzling into his neck. "How much sleep have you been getting? You're so tired."
"I've been going out quite a bit." He mutters, twirling pieces of my hair between his fingers.
"Drinking?" I question gently and his chest rumbles as he chuckles lightly.
"Max goes out a lot… and I need something to pass the time till you free up." He mutters. "Why are you here though… won't your little friends notice?"
"Remember earlier, we were trying tactical apprehension of a single target- I'm the target, so I can avoid them." I explain softly, but I can see his eyelids slowly fluttering close.
With the basic understanding, I won't be able to move him if he's asleep, I try to lie him down on his sofa. I get the blanket from his bed, and lie it on top of him, while he grabs at me sloppily.
"Come-here!" Eric groans irritated, but I place my fingers over his lips lightly and hug his side.
"Hopefully I'll see you later today. Goodnight Eric." I murmur softly as he loses consciousness, and I peck him lightly on the lips for good measure.
I lie there holding him for a couple of hours or so, before steeling my own consciousness, and reaching out of his grasp. I disable his alarm on his watch, and close all the curtains and turn all the lights off. His body clock will wake him up anyway,
/but…
And with one last look at his sleeping form, I leave for my morning run.
12321
I meet up with the others at breakfast, and simply dismiss any comments about me disappearing and not turning up to the dorms, before we make our way to the training room.
"This isn't going to be fun." Beth groans. "Avery, try not to give me a headache, will you?"
"Huh?" Lily questions.
"I'm the only one Beth hasn't fought, same with Ben, but since Beth didn't fight last week it's more likely to be her and Ben gets a week off." I summarize. "I wouldn't hold to it though Beth, the instructors have been planning something in the last couple
/of weeks."
"You still going on about that? Honestly I will never understand how you read people." Jay says shaking his head.
"What's this about?" Ben asks confused.
"She guessed a tactical expedition before Paintballing, and now she's guessing the instructor's next new thing. I personally think it's so close to the end that they'll just keep it the same." Jay counters giving me a 'you're crazy' look.
"And you think?" Lily turns to me.
"They introduced sniping, so not to do with guns, no more tactical expeditions at a guess, so likely to do with fights and knives. Though there isn't much more we can do with knives without it being knife fights, which is unlikely since the infirmary
/has been so full because of the recent raids and can't deal with the many injuries that come with knife fight likely something to do with fights, but who knows what." I recite exactly what I had told Jay a few days ago, and her
eyes are wide. Lily merely sighs.
"I don't know why I even bothered starting that argument with you, you're far too thorough." Lily complains.
"Thank you." I say with a smirk.
"Yeah, but when she slips up its great!" Beth says with a grin. "I'm hoping her next slip up will be us walking in on a romantic endeavour!"
"You're still going on about that?" I drawl, silently aware of the new mark at the base of my neck hidden by my high neck Tahiti, that Eric gave me early this morning. "Other people are more involved with that kind of thing, Leon's got a thing for
that girl who just came back from Patrol, Tisha."
"Really?" Beth says.
"But isn't she going back out?" Lily asks and I just smile as we enter the training room, Four's presence commanding silence.
We stand there chatting silently, but I notice the Dauntless-born at the other side of the room. We don't usually have fights at the same time, since Eric to survey all of us…
"Four? Aren't we supposed to be starting?" Jay questions. Shit! How did I forget today is today! I turned of Eric's alarms, no one knows his passcode, he's going to sleep through fights.
"We should be, but our oh so organised leader is late." Four says with bite, just as Lauren, the dauntless-born trainer jogs over.
"Do you know…?" I hear her mutter, and Four just looks at her, his answer clear- no.
"Don't go biting your tail, some of us are just so important we have to do something called prioritisation." I let out a light breath as I hear his voice. His body clock did wake him up. He doesn't look any better than yesterday, though I do suppose he
/probably has a massive hangover, no matter how much water I made him drink yesterday.
"By the way you've been talking about it recently I would've expected this your priority." Four snaps lightly.
"Well I wouldn't expect you to understand the significance of the rest of my work." Eric adds, and suddenly everyone is standing straighter.
"Right, transfers, dauntless-born, listen up!" He yells across the whole room, and all of a sudden, I see what's happening. He said it would be fun.
"We are trialling a new exercise this year in physical, due to the skill level of transfers and dauntless-born separately being different from previous years. Your last three weeks of fights will be merged, so we can get a more accurate gauge of who gets
/cut in three weeks' time." Eric motions to Four, who reveals the board of match-ups.
"Obviously, there are many more dauntless-born than transfer, so some dauntless-born will still be fighting dauntless-born, but don't even think of slacking." Eric snarls. "And transfers," There's a pause as I can almost sense everyone holding their breath.
/"try not to get killed."
I can't stop the smile on my face as I find the name next to mine, and recognise it. Kray, who I see is ranked number 7 out of the 29 dauntless-born, will be an interesting fight. As I move to the outskirts of the room, I consider her person.
Her character is quite eccentric, which tends to connote to a more unique fighting style as well. Not to mention I've heard Mark and Leon teasing her multiple times at not being so great with a gun, which suggests her fighting is much better. First up
/is Isobel and… Mark, who is first ranked. Definitely an effective tactic to get rid of the deadweight.
I examine the rest, and see none of Jay, Beth, Ben or Lily are against any dauntless-born I know personally or know as a larger threat. But that doesn't mean it will be easy. Lily is after me, against a dauntless-born 18th ranked. And it will be the first
/match since she decided to stop holding back.
"How are you feeling?" I ask her, silently surveying her in my peripheral. She looks determined… not really new news.
"Good." She says, but I catch the faint wobble in her voice.
"We practiced the punches to the head, you know the right amount of force to use so they won't suffer any lasting effects, they won't even be out for any more than a few hours. You won't hurt him." I say calmly, and she nods. "Though I'd use a bit more
/force than usual, he looks like he has a thick skull."
She looks at me doubtfully, and I smile with a chuckle.
"Are you sure-"
"Just watch me fight Kray, try and focus on how infuriating I am to you when I fight. You'll do fine." I finish, before observing the other matches.
"Avery, Kray." Four shouts, and as I walk past him he catches my arm.
"Do me a favour and win me a bet?" He questions, and I raise my eyebrow in question.
"Three minutes." He mutters, and I follow his gaze to see some other dauntless who look his age, watching. I smirk at Four and shrug, before walking into the mat. That only gave me more information. If Four thinks I can beat her, it means I can be more
/bold sooner, rather than waiting around to gauge her skill.
Kray is smaller, so my guess would be… flooring people, perhaps with falls. Getting in close, grabbing on and pulling to the floor.
"Go on!" Four yells, and I press down the button on my watch. As I expected, she starts moving in closer, and as I duck and dodge out of the way simply, I keep a close eye on her footwork, and just as she steps forward, reaching her hands out to grab
/rather than punch, I'm not there.
With kicks, I can attack from much further out, so I duck low away from her hands, and shift backwards before kicking her easily in the torso. She probably got to 7th ranked with her unusual fighting style, but her style is a terrible matchup against
/kick-based attacks.
My first kick to her torso winds her, and though she blocks my next two well she can't avoid my next to her knees which sends her sprawling back as I keep my distance.
Once she's up, she readies herself, and just when she isn't expecting it after my flurry of kicks, I twirl straight in, breaking her defence stance, and a swift uppercut to her jaw has her out.
I press the button on my watch once more, before taking the lighter girl by her shoulders and carrying her out towards Mark, Leon, Raven and DT, and pass Four on the way. I show him my watch.
"You owe me one." I say, just as he smiles, patting my shoulder.
"Couldn't you have made my win margin a little larger though?"
"I was seven whole seconds within the boundary. A bet is either won or lost, there isn't an in between." I say, before placing Kray down.
Leon opens his mouth to talk but I shake my head and turn my gaze back to the mats.
Time to see if she really had listened, and really did understand, the nature of a fight.
Lily's opponent is big, and obviously went along with the usual dauntless man regime of the bigger, the better, relied on strength overwhelming an enemy. His rank as 18thmeant he wasn't very fast.
"Argh!" Lily yells as she plants a hefty punch to his solar plexus, and as he steps back confused at her aggression, she steps purposely on his ankle, and he retreats further.
Jay came up with the idea of her yelling and making noise during a fight to confuse an opponent with big moves, whilst what she's really going for are the smaller less noticeable ones, to his ankles.
She has a hard time blocking, and does get a heavy punch to the jaw and the shoulder which look really very bad, but she gets out of the way before he can try and pin her, which is good. And it doesn't take long before she continually wears down his ankles,
/and uses the move I taught her almost immediately after we made up, pulling out his ankle with a simple hook.
He doesn't fall back completely, and plants his crouch firmly so she can't try and pin him on the ground, just as we were taught.
But Lily would never be able to pin his figure if she tried. What she was really going for was-
She slams her knuckles into his temple at the side, perfect placement we practiced the last week, and he's out.
"Wow, she's… how is she... what third lastranked? She's miles better than that first girl... Isobel was it?" Raven questions, and I sigh lightly.
"She was against violence." I say bluntly, and Raven looks at me confused. "She only just got out of that mindset."
"No but that was great… did she take out his ankles so she could get a proper shot at his head?" Mark questions and I nod.
"It's become her best endgame this past week. She could never pin a larger opponent like him, but she wants to end things quick, so she eliminates his ankles so he crouches or kneels, so she can actually reach his head since he's so much taller. Honestly
/her height was the hardest thing to deal with, she just can't reach a lot of male opponents." I explain as Lily walks back after failing to drag her passed out victim.
"Great work Lily!" Jay says coming over.
"That was brilliant, ingenious." Mark agrees.
"You'll have to teach me the height thing." Raven says, as Lily looks dazed. Her breathing is fast, and her cheek is in the swelling process, but she looks up to me, and I have a sharp intake of breath.
The determination, the sharpness of her gaze makes me want to move back, the fierceness alone shocking me.
She doesn't say anything, just nods at me, and that's all it is.
A silent thanks.
The next chapter finally up… I know it's really late, but I did warn you last chapter… I'll be abroad the next few weeks so I'm afraid the next chapter will probably be late as well, but for now- this was my surprise! I realised I hadn't created enough transfers to make these last weeks exciting, so the whole physical initiation had no build up, so this was a perfect answer! Not to mention we had ERIC GLORIOUS ERIC at the start of the chapter- which was so therapeutic to right ngl. We've got more excitement to come on that front, also I'm planning another social event for next chapter, so there's still more to come! Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, read and review as always!