Eric Coulter Imagines

Raging Storm

Eric Coulter can sense the fight coming. Usually, he relishes any chance of conflict, like all he needs is to get someone else's blood to coat his knuckles and he'll be set for life, but today is different. Maybe it's because no matter what happens, there will be no winners in today's fight, no one being led out of the ring with their hands held triumphantly over their heads. Sure, no bones will be broken, but neither he nor Y/N L/N will end today completely intact.

He's been waiting alone in what's supposed to be their shared apartment for hours now, long since the time when Y/N should have been home. Eric isn't going to claim that there's a curfew here, not for either of them. Dauntless leaders make the rules for everyone except themselves, Eric knows that better than anyone.

That's why he shouldn't be irritated that Y/N isn't home yet, but he is. He always is. Typically, Eric is able to convince himself to let it go, that of all the hills to die on her punctuality shouldn't be the worst of all. It's not like they ever do anything but sit around, anyway, but that's precisely why Eric is angry in the first place.

They've both been busy, it's not like this is solely Y/N's fault, but Eric has always found it a little easier to blame anyone but himself. Surely Eric couldn't be the reason Four beat him out for the slot of top initiate during their own training round, surely the other boy was cheating or doing something other than simply being better. Surely the reason he hasn't seen his girlfriend other than glimpses across crowded hallways will be a problem on her end and not something that can be traced back to him.

That's what Dauntless has taught him, at least. Maybe back in Erudite there's a boy who doesn't like to pretend that he was Dauntless-born, some kid who knows when to accept responsibility even when he's wrong. Maybe there was once an iteration of Eric Coulter that wasn't the mess he's grown into today.

It's foolish thinking, and Eric knows it. He has always been himself, and even if that character has strengthened and hardened into a knife's edge over the recent years, nothing real has changed. Eric has always been a monster, and usually he likes it, but today it just makes him feel even more alone than usual. If he's truly the cruel, sadistic training leader that he'd like to be, why does he feel the need to fill his hours with someone else's company?

The door clicks open at last, a welcome break from Eric's intrusive thoughts. It's not like this evening is going to get any easier now that Y/N is back, but at least he'll be able to place a little more of his rage out on the woman currently tiptoeing through the door instead of funneling it back into himself. Eric has always been more of a fighter than a thinker, even if that's let people down in the past. All he has is his racing fury and tendency for blood. It is all that he has ever needed.

Some quiet part of his head whispers that that isn't entirely true. When he had fallen for Y/N, and Eric well and truly fell, he doesn't know that he had been the same since. It was as if he had taken a temporary lapse from the monster. Other Dauntless had even commented on it, how Eric seemed more focused, more clean in the days since he kissed Y/N for the first time.

That had been good for him, being loved. It had sharpened his blunt cruelty into the edge of a razor. Eric had been no less bloodthirsty, but he was better at it. He wasted less of his time on displays that he didn't need. Loving Y/N had made him more aware of himself, and in turn, more aware of all that he could be if Eric stopped getting caught up in stepping on people's dreams just because he felt like it.

Now, all Eric feels aware of is the slump in Y/N's shoulders, the way she took off her shoes an instant before she slipped inside the door so she can try not to make a sound. Eric's eyes have long since adjusted, and all of her secrecy is pointless. It just proves that today is yet another day of them not working.