A Fall From Grace, but There Wasn't a Lot to Begin With

Hubris was a fickle, funny fault to have. My father called his old faction vain and then left to become a self-important leader in a selfless faction. Max and Jeanine sought to be conquerors and died by their own militia's hands. To seek the highest high and fail is uniquely human and apparently so very implicit in all Chicagoans.

I had the same critical fault. Reaching for greatness always feels so correct and necessary that it often blinds you.

Let me back things up.

The plan to rollout the Dauntless deployment progressed slower than I'd initially expected. Perhaps it was because I was used to the reactionary methods we followed when a report was made of trouble being stirred up in the city, but I didn't anticipate that deployment would take weeks to organize.

Housing needed to be settled. Patrolling local areas like Candor's sector might have allowed our soldiers to remain in their apartments within Dauntless, but the other, further sectors required a different solution so that we'd be able to react quickly enough to issues. Agreements between the factions needed to be established to allow armed Dauntless to move into housing there. I was going to have my work cut out for me with needing to convince Johanna, a self-proclaimed pacifist, to allow my regiment to even step foot on Amity's land, never mind live and sleep there. She'd only doubled down on her stance after the events of the Insurgency.

Initial conversations went about as well as I had expected. Johanna had very few of her people outside of the compound in these days, so most of our communication came through a single pair of older women. They lived in the Hub, forcing me to make the trip out to them every time that I wanted to talk to them.

Eric laughed at that. My blood pressure spiked every time myself and my fellow Leaders had a progress report meeting. I was so focused on proving myself competent that I refused to consider asking for help.

Because even worse than putting up with bending to Amity's whims was having to also figure out the best way to cooperate with the traitor. I only considered him useful for the eventual conversations I'd need to have with those at the Fence. I wanted to manage the ambassadors by myself using my brand new training.

It would have all worked out until I made a… misstep while moving forward with Amity. While still dancing around actually answering yes or no to the deployment, one of the women had asked whether their daily lives would truly be untouched while having Dauntless around. I insisted that the occupation would be seamless and that I was hand picking each soldier that was going.

Using the actual terms - soldiers and occupation - was my downfall. They froze up and ended the meeting immediately; I found myself outside the conference room with an unsigned agreement and an ache in my jaw from clenching my teeth. Sitting on the floor of the train back to Dauntless, I listened to reports on my radio to drown out my own thoughts.

I didn't want to keep thinking over the simple mistake. A rookie mistake, talking to Amity like that. I was new to Leadership, but I didn't have the luxury of being able to make any errors. There was too much at stake for the city: in the time it was taking us to coordinate the deployment, two food trains had been assaulted while on their way in from Amity while outside the wall. I was under the microscope. Any further failures, any missteps, would indicate that I wasn't truly Dauntless enough to deserve my role. I had to get things right the first time and stat.

When I got back to my office after the meeting, I found Eric sitting in his old chair. My chair, that was. I cleared my throat and crossed my arms tightly. "Remembering the old days fondly?" I growled. I didn't like the fact that he'd been reading the files I had in my inbox. He was allowed to access any level of classified information, per his rehabilitation and consultant role, but I still didn't enjoy seeing him paw around our carefully collected intelligence.

He gave me that damn dry smirk of his and swiveled back and forth once more. "Only the ones before your ugly mug darkened my doorstep," he drawled. Finally he stood up, gesturing for me to take the chair. I didn't hold back my glare as I took a seat. I didn't need his permission to sit in my own damn chair.

"You're back early. Didn't feel like meditating with the ambassadors?" Eric asked. He took up residence in the seat across from me. We were level with one another at this height and I had to consciously look down to break our glaring contest.

"Don't worry about it," I insisted. "I only need you to smooth things over with the wall guard." I flipped an open file folder closed and returned it to its proper place on my desk. It was too recent a wound to let Eric pick at.

It was easy to forget that Eric took every chance he could to arm himself with a weapon - even words. He leaned back and flipped a pen in the air, cool and indifferent as he dropped his next cutting remark: "It's not going to matter if I keep the wall guard in check if Amity doesn't even allow you to step foot on its land. By the sounds of things, you won't even be leaving this office," he said.

I bristled. "I'm working on it. There's a lot of moving parts," I spat through gritted teeth.

He hummed, the sound deep in his chest. "Sounds like an excuse, but I know you're too good to fall back on those," Eric said. "After all, you're the darling… oh, no wait, you're no longer a prodigy. What's it like, to know that you could lose everything you've worked for in a few short weeks? I can't possibly imagine what that could do to a person."

He was taunting me. Rationally, I should have shrugged it off. "Fuck off," I hissed. My fingers curled into a fist on my lap. I wasn't even trying to pretend to write anything in the open report in front of me.

"I would but I'm trying to do a good job. If you can't do it, someone has to," Eric replied.

My glare flicked back to meet his eyes. I loathed the insufferable arrogance he was oozing. "They balked at some of the language in the document. I'm going to make edits and bring it to them tomorrow. I've got Amity under control," I snapped.

He lifted his hands and leaned further back in the chair. "My mistake. Sounds exactly like a diplomatic solution that will appease their fears. Some vocab changes," Eric said.

It was a trap. I could see the snare ready to snap up if I went for the bait. "What would you do instead?" The thing about bait is that it's too tempting if the prey's hungry enough.

Eric smirked. "Figure out what they want. Hold it ransom for what we need. And don't let them tie your hands, either. When we're out there, we need to operate on our own authority, not theirs," he said smoothly.

I raised an eyebrow. "Our authority?" I questioned.

His shoulder lifted. "Dauntless' authority," he said in a conciliatory voice. I didn't trust it.

"No, you meant yours and mine," I said. "I'm not an idiot. That's what you want, isn't it. Power again. You know what would get Johanna to accept terms and you're holding it over my head now to get what you want." I hated the way that his smirk turned toothy at that.

Eric finally leaned forward in the chair. His clasped hands sat on my desk just in front of the blank report that I was supposed to be writing right now. "So you can use that Erudite aptitude every once in a while. Glad to see you're not completely useless," he said. "Yes, I do think that I have something to help out if you're willing to discuss a few thoughts that I've had."

"A few thoughts," I replied dryly.

"Just a conversation. We should discuss how things are going to be handled out in Amity, after all. You do need my help with those on the Fence," he said. His smugness was smothering. I could feel the rope around my feet as the snare readied to snap up.

I looked back down at my empty report. Today was more than a few steps back. We needed the deployment to be as seamless as possible. The other three factions had already accepted most of the terms set up by the others Leaders. And I couldn't stop thinking about the threat of another train attack. I couldn't hand this report in without some sort of positive spin, some new plan of action. I was supposed to be able to handle this.

I put my pen down. "You have to help me with the Fence. That was an order and it'll stand," I shot back in reply. "But we… we can have a conversation about chain of command in Amity."

Eric extended his hand. The bold T stood out. I wasn't to trust a single word that came out of his mouth. I was struggling right now and here was a lifeboat. One rigged with C4 and a timer, I was certain, but a lifeboat all the same.

"We can discuss it over dinner tomorrow, after we work things over with Amity," he said as we shook hands.

I couldn't tell if I'd sidestepped the snare or not. Guess I'd find out if I ended up upside down.

The Amity ambassadors barely reacted at all to Eric's presence at our next meeting. Something about their nature made accepting his alleged rehabilitation effortless, or at least that was how they treated him. He didn't even step on my toes during the meeting, stepping into the openings that I left for him and otherwise keeping his trap shut. I didn't want to trust him - and I'd gone into the meeting not expecting him to actually have the leverage that he'd claimed - but by god he got them to sign the occupation agreement.

We didn't have to give up autonomy there. Our sole restrictions were on the amount of manpower we would be allowed to house there, but if there was a tactical situation we'd still have their express permission to bring in additional defensive troops.

Our concessions seemed minimal. Amity had been seeking support to push city leaders to repurpose rooftops and more public land for urban food opportunities. It was expensive and would require inter-factional cooperation to keep them functioning, which was a big part of why it'd never fully gotten off the ground. Telling Candor to spend a few hours weeding a garden was harder than I'd expected, but if it got us to move forward with our plans, I would make the argument to the council personally.

And… that worked. I clutched the proof in my hands all the way back on the train. Eric stood across from me, his expression unreadable.

"I suppose this is when I should say thanks?" I called over the whipping wind. The door was open between us, cooling down the unseasonable bout of heat that had come in today. This late in October shouldn't have been quite so warm. The lake effect was bound to hit us with a cold snap sooner rather than later.

"I don't care about thanks. I care about what I'm owed," he replied. That was it.

I snorted and rolled my eyes. It still didn't surprise me that this was how Eric responded to thanks. He spent his time alone, cut off from the yes-men of his old regime. This was probably the first time in a while that he'd left the compound. Of course he was incapable of accepting genuine thanks.

His attitude wasn't much better at dinner. I met him at the entrance to Dauntless' bar. The kind of conversation we were going to have was better suited to the wooden booths along the walls of the bar rather than in the middle of the mess hall. Eric openly scowled at people passing by and his expression smoothed to a passing polite grimace when he spotted me.

"Let's get this over with," I grumbled as we staked out a table. Eric flagged down a server rather than speak to me first. I ordered a burger and fries and Eric copied me. He also ordered a pitcher of beer. I wrinkled my nose. "We're not going to be here that long," I protested once the server walked away.

Eric lifted one shoulder. "Suit yourself, Stiff," he replied. "I don't care what you do once we're done talking."

"Then let's talk," I spat. I crossed my arms over my chest and pressed my lips in a flat line. I wasn't going to make yesterday's mistake of talking my way right into his plans. He'd talk. I'd listen. Once he was done, I'd tell him where to shove his delusions of power.

Eric mirrored my pose. "You're not used to running things the way that they need to be run," he growled. I tipped my head but otherwise didn't react. The corners of his lips dipped just so. He continued, "You can't be everyone's friend. Amity wasn't going to kowtow to your demands just because you smiled at them, no matter how much they preach the peace and love bullshit."

"Who said that I was trying to be anyone's friend?" I said.

"Oh come on," Eric scoffed. "You had, what, three lessons on diplomatic meetings and then got sent to negotiate for occupation rights? Of course you're not going to have the right attitude going in there. You're looking at it through the lens of checks and balances. Everyone gets something for something else."

"Isn't that exactly what we did today?" I retorted.

He shook his head. "They got something, yeah, but it sure as hell wasn't equal to what they were giving up. The trick today was built on your blunder yesterday: they know the occupation is coming and they're wetting their farmer's jeans thinking about it. Today was throwing them a bone to put up with what we could have just taken by force," he said.

"I- that wasn't how it played out at all," I said quickly. I'd done everything by the book for handling Amity concerns. No pressure words of troops and armaments. They had concerns. We… well we hadn't appeased them per se. Eric had jumped in at those points, always coming back around to the carrot he was dangling for their urban plans.

Eric must have seen the wheels turning in my head because his damned smug smirk came back with a vengeance. "Wasn't it?" he said, cocksure once again. We hadn't ended up walking back any points about the force we were bringing in. Even the discussion of number of Dauntless was strictly limited by available housing not by the usual anti-violence aims of Amity. They had been too scared to push against us, and I had missed it all under the diplomatic, polite back-and-forth.

Our beer showed up. Two freezer-chilled glasses thunked down with the pitcher, a thin sheen of icy condensation still on the outside. Our server muttered something about the burgers being out in a little bit before turning tail and leaving. I wished that I could have gone with her.

Eric filled both glasses and I took the one he offered me silently, sucking down a good third of it. I hated the taste of beer, but I needed something to get rid of the bitter taste that was sitting in the back of my throat now. "Thanks for the lesson, Eric," he said in a falsetto voice. My eyes were starting to hurt from the near-constant glaring. How dare he mock me.

"That's not what I sound like," I spat in reply. "And what happened to not giving a damn about thanks?"

He shrugged as he took another swig of beer. His glass was nearly empty already. Topping it off with the pitcher, Eric finally addressed the elephant in the room. "About our deal," he said with his voice back to its normal pitch, "I was thinking something like a fifty-fifty split would be more than fair."

"Fifty-fifty. You're joking," I said in a deadpan voice.

His piercings glinted as he raised one eyebrow. "Do I sound like I'm fucking around? I know my worth, Stiff."

I leaned heavily on one elbow, resting my chin on my fist. "That's a riot," I said, still flat as a board. "Yeah, no. You're not going to get to call any shots for my squad."

"You said we'd talk chain of command. You can't back away from that deal. We shook on it," Eric snarled.

"We're talking. You're offering madness and I'm telling you so. That's all I owed you," I said.

His nostrils flared in obvious frustration but he managed to force himself to speak in a low, strained voice. "This is where you counter with a different deal. Obviously I wasn't expecting you to just say yes to taking me on as an equal," Eric hissed.

I took another draw from my beer, studying him like he so often did me. I was taking a measure of him and seeing if he was worth even a portion of what he claimed. He was valuable to me for the fence guard and I wasn't going to expect his word alone to keep him to that deal, no matter what I'd claimed yesterday. I wasn't an idiot. He also had been in Leadership for two years. He knew how Amity thought, how the other faction leaders and moving pieces worked. And I knew that he was a brutal, effective strategist. The assault on Candor had been brilliant even though it was for a horrible purpose.

I saw once again in my mind's eye the face of the little girl he'd held at gunpoint, ready to fire. A chill ran along my spine as I recognized that same desperate look in the hollows of his eyes now. If I didn't contain Eric, he'd find some other path to his endgoals whatever they may be.

My empty glass clunked softly as I placed it on the wooden tabletop. "I need a second-in-command. Someone to watch my back and keep my eyes open," I said slowly. Eric's eyes remained hungry as he listened intently.

"You won't have power on your own. I'm not going to give you the Lieutenant rank in the field, but you will be able to make calls provided their within my guidelines. You'll be second-in-command only while out there. As soon as we're back within the walls, you're back to consultant," I finished.

His cheek twitched. "That's a miserable deal," he spat.

"But you're going to take it, aren't you?" I said. We stared at each other for a moment more.

"No one's going to take me seriously without a rank," Eric hissed.

I shrugged. "Consider it part of your rehab. You're gonna need to earn my people's respect - average Dauntless trying to protect the city. Shouldn't be too hard since that's the whole point of you being alive out here instead of in the ground with two holes in your head," I retorted.

Our burgers arrived. The server tried to be cheerful this time, but Eric and I were still locked in our silent struggle. Whoever spoke next would be conceding to the other, I could feel it this time. I picked at my fries, making it clear that I wasn't going to say anything else. If he didn't want my deal, he wasn't going to be getting another.

Eric huffed and glared out at the slowly filling bar. "Fine. I'll be your second. But you will be giving me that rank soon. I'll make sure of it," he growled.

"When you earn it, sure. But I'll be the judge of that if it happens." I didn't feel satisfied. Neither of us had really won. We were still dancing around one another. I was just like Amity here, forced to accept Eric's presence on my command team. Keeping him an arm's length away from a real rank was hardly some great victory. My only consolation was knowing that I'd at least slipped past his attempt to grab my power for his own.

Scarfing down my food, I once again fought to wash away the bitter taste of frustration. Eric refilled our beer glasses and I didn't say thanks. It's the little things, sometimes.

A/N: Please let me know what you think of the update and check out my other Divergent/Eris stories if you haven't already!