Work Text:
The rough part about being an Initiate - outside of the near-endless training and exhaustion - was that the only free time that we were afforded came at night. So far this week I had seen the sun only a handful of minutes, from the bleary windows of the training gym and once from the stairwell when one of the full-fledged Dauntless had used a side door while we swapped floors.
I would have loved to have taken the invitation we received to go up to the net entrance and drink some contraband beers with the Dauntless-borns. Unfortunately my laundry had piled up and instead of heading up to the fresh air I instead dove deeper into the complex. The blue-lit halls of the utilities section were in fact not so much fun as shooting the shit with Lynn, Marlene, and the others.
I didn’t mind it at first. You didn’t grow up in Abnegation without picking up the talent to shove away the disdain at being the only sucker to do work instead of something fun. My clothes all fit into one washer and dryer - thank you, all-black color scheme killing the need to separate darks and lights - and I worked through a few chapters on the faction history book that Lauren had leant me.
When the dryer beeped and I brought my warm bundle of clothes back to my bunk and trunk I thought that I had lucked out. Christina and Will weren’t back yet, so chances were I could still catch the tail end of the rooftop party.
It was only as I was actively dropping the pile onto my bedding to sort through that I spotted the tacky, red substance there. Yelping, I scrambled to pick the pile back up. Pants and shirts tumbled and more than a few socks were lost to the red paint. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I snapped.
Enough of the clothing had fallen victim to the paint where it was just easier to bundle everything up in a soiled pillowcase to be washed once more. As I piled them in, I realized that the paint on my comforter and sheets had been smeared into letters. STIFF screamed up at me, creative as usual. I rolled my eyes because it kept the pinpricks of angry tears from spilling out while I rolled the comforter into a ball.
It didn’t matter how careful I was to keep from getting the letters all over my current clothes. As I maneuvered the comforter I realized that my hands were picking up more tacky paint. Horrified, I realized there was a second layer underneath the blanket. It was longer but no more creative: FACTIONLESS. They couldn’t make up their mind, apparently.
I was grateful that I had found the hidden left after the stairwell to get to the laundry room. I would have missed it if I hadn’t just seen it earlier tonight. When I swiped at my eyes to clear the angry tears that refused to stop, I smeared paint along there. It stung, adding further gasoline to the tire fire of my emotions.
At least the washer doors slammed with a satisfying thud when I did get everything loaded up. This time I didn’t have my book, but I doubt that I would have been able to focus on any of it. I leaned heavily against the last washer, slumped down on the floor while I rubbed at my eye. There was paint stuck on my eyelashes. I could see it every time that I blinked which was often.
If I stopped blinking then the tears would escape. They were pointless tears, ones that my father would have averted his gaze from as a basic courtesy. We couldn’t even be selfish enough to cry for ourselves, you see. If I was a kid my mother would have given me a handkerchief to blot at my eyes. I made do with the bottom of my shirt.
The washer revved behind me once the water had poured in. It only took a minute to get to full speed, thumping and whirling at my back. The noise was distracting and loud.
Thinking about my family just made the lump in my throat catch worse. I didn’t miss Abnegation or it’s controlling ways, but I did miss them. Even with all their flaws. Could I admit that? No. But it still hurt, especially with stupid, cruel pranks like these. I thought that the callous barb of “Stiff” would lose its bite after a while. I should have been used to it by now, and maybe I was because I knew who to expect it from, for the most part.
Tonight’s frustration burned deep in my gut, hot and painful. I had already missed out on the sliver of bonding time with the Dauntless-borns and had been too abashed to ask Christina to keep me company now. I didn’t want to not belong here.
The washer continued to whirl and thump. Two more beat off-tempo next to me with almost all of my belongings inside, possibly ruined. I had a handful of points assigned to me from the start of Initiation, but I had mentally been planning on using them on something to celebrate passing the final tests. If I had to spend them now just to get some bedding and replace the tac pants that I had only just bought, I was going to scream.
Over even the thump of the washing machines there came the painful creak of the door swinging open and shut. I wiped at my face one more time with the heels of my palms. As best as I could tell I had scrubbed off the paint from around my eyes. At least I didn’t look too pathetic when Eric stepped over one of the stainless steel tables with a bin.
He cocked his head when he spotted me on the ground, a pair of towels in one hand and a t-shirt in the other. “Prior?” he asked. He set the laundry back into the bin and rounded the table to pull me to my feet.
“I’d ask if you’re okay, but that’s clearly not the case,” he remarked. I scoffed, though I think the haughty impression was ruined by the sniffle that followed.
“Maybe not,” I admitted. Wiping under my eyes in case any more traitorous tears had slipped by, I jerked my other thumb in the direction of the washers. “Someone dumped paint all over my bed. Gotta clean it up before curfew.”
His brow furrowed further, replacing the confusion with a flare of anger that I was glad wasn’t directed at me. “Who?” he demanded.
“Does it matter?” I said.
Eric’s cold grey eyes turned soft as they blinked once, twice. Then they returned to their natural state. “It does to me,” he replied. “Who did this to you?”