"You look like you had a hard day," Hotdog said as Honey slumped heavily onto the couch beside him.
"You have no idea," she shook her head. "I'm not late, am I?"
"No, they haven't gone on yet," Daisy assured her, perched on the back of the couch, her feet on the cushion between them.
The last six months hadn't so much changed her friends as allowed them to blossom. Daisy and Cliff had taken Patrol positions and were doing very well. Daisy was already a squad leader, with the name of said squad tattooed on her bicep - Mudhumpers. Her Mohawk was now two toned, pink in the center where it spiked up, flanked by two purple braids against her scalp on either side. Hotdog was working in the security office with Four. After spending just about every day with their former instructor, he said Four was a pretty decent guy and he almost wasn't scared of him anymore. Beth had surprised everyone by going into weapon design and had turned out to be quite inspired. Honey could only hope she didn't end up like Kai; for Hotdog's sake at least, since the two had been a couple for four months now and were madly in love, with matching fiery half-heart tattoos on their hands that formed a whole when side by side. It was sickeningly wonderful. Calhoun had gone into inter-faction relations where his affable personality and easy-going nature, coupled with that firm core of his made him a quick favorite.
He was the reason the three of them were sitting on an old couch down in the concert district of the Dauntless compound. Presently, the young man in question took to the stage with his three cohorts and the sound system crackled to life. He lifted his guitar - a gorgeous ebony and chrome instrument that his friends had pooled points to gift him after initiation was over, to replace the one Eric had forced him to destroy - and started to play. It wasn't the lazy, lilting melody he'd strummed on Visiting Day, but something a bit harder, more up-tempo. He really had a gift.
The band be played in was called Lockbox. Currently, anyway; the month before it had been Copper Core and the week before that, Inferion. The "leader" was a man named Chris, a drummer, who was head to toe tattoos of naked women and trolls. Honey wasn't a fan. None of them were, really, but he could play and it worked for Calhoun, so that's what mattered. The singer, Jasper, was a tiny, angry little man. He wasn't a bad guy, just always scowling and swearing about something or other that had set him off. He had a voice like a raspy angel and, just now, was singing about how sad his mother would be if he fell into the Chasm. Honey could never remember the bassist's name.
Halfway through the second song, Hotdog went to get something to drink and came back ten minutes later with a cardboard tray full of bar food - cheese, potato skins, pickles, and sausage balls - all breaded and deep fried. As Honey helped herself to a sausage ball, she remembered the look on her mother's face that afternoon and her stomach clenched around the bite she'd just swallowed.
"Hey, Hots n' Tots?"
"Yeah?" He shoved several pickles into his mouth.
"Candor question," she prefaced, meaning she needed some blunt truth. He nodded, understanding. She paused, trying to decide how to phrase it. "Do I eat too much?"
Hotdog snorted, smirking at her. "Depends on whose points are paying for it," he quipped. Of course, points were only used for foods outside the mess hall and aside the basic rations each member was entitled to - like the cholesterol special he had set between them. Daisy reached down and picked up a cheese finger.
"Are you asking if you're fat? Why would you think you're fat?" she demanded, incredulous. Because I'm sitting next to you, gorgeous.
Honey shrugged. "My grandma was chubby."
"So what? My grandpa was a man, that doesn't mean I'm gonna sprout a dick," the other girl said with a laugh. Anyone who didn't know better would think Daisy had been raised Dauntless. Hotdog choked on his pickles.
"It's genetics. I'm short like she was. I had her hair, before I bleached it out. So, it's more than likely I've inherited other traits from her," Honey explained. The squad leader looked at her with a speculative frown.
"Your nose is showing," she said, displeasedly. "What happened today? Did one of those crows say something to you?"
"Crows" was what some of the faction called the ancillaries, since they were waiting for one of the leaders to drop, like a carrion eater waits for a corpse.
"I might be one of those crows someday," the smaller girl pointed out. Daisy rolled her eyes at that notion.
"You should be eating them for breakfast. Now, tell me what happened."
"Nothing. Nothing in the office, anyway. Eric had a meeting at Erudite-"
"That explains this," Daisy tapped her on the nose.
"I had lunch with my family," Honey finished. Hotdog gave her a perplexed look of disapproval.
"And they told you that you're fat?"
She shook her head, but her slightly pouted, frowny lower lip didn't agree. "No. I mean… No, they didn't say I was fat." Julian had commented on her meal, but that was just Julian being Julian. And her mother hadn't said anything at all.
"Good, because that's bullcrap," he declared, uncharacteristically sharp. She got the feeling he might not have believed her. "Your family needs to have their eyes checked."
"Or their mouths sewn shut," Daisy agreed. Honey's cheeks and throat felt warm and her boots were suddenly incredibly interesting.
"They didn't say anything," she insisted. "And, even if they had, it's not like I'm not all soft, still. Even after eight months."
"What's wrong with that?" he demanded, high and incredulous.
"No one wants to fuck a board, you know," Daisy declared, giving her shoulder a little shove.
Honey covered her face with her hands and groaned. She couldn't believe the things that came out of Daisy's mouth sometimes.
"What are you talking about? People lay boards all the time." This was said by Beth, who sauntered up to the couch and plopped herself into her boyfriend's lap. She looped an arm around his neck and kissed him lazily for a moment. She'd come a long way from Abnegation.
"Honey's stupid family told her she's fat," Daisy told the dark-haired girl.
"They did not. And they aren't stupid," Honey frowned at her. She really wished she'd kept her mouth shut. "Just forget it."
"What happened, now?" Beth asked, brows high with surprise over the conversation she'd walked into.
"She saw her family today and is suddenly concerned she eats too much, but no one said anything, of course," Daisy condensed the issue, heavy with sarcasm. Beth frowned, eyes wide and soft.
"Can we just drop it, please?" the smaller girl implored, growing irritated in her embarrassment. "Thank you for saying I'm not fat. Now let's forget I said anything."
"Don't thank us, because you're not fat," Daisy gave her a scowl. "So, yes we can stop talking about it now, because there's nothing else to say."
They lapsed into tense, awkward silence. Honey tried to feel comforted by their anger over the subject, but just felt stupid for bringing it up. And she couldn't miss the fact that this was the second time today someone had gotten mad at her while telling her something complimentary about herself. By the time Lockbox's set ended, she was roiling inside with the sum of all the stress, confusion, and embarrassment of the day. She was just going to tell Calhoun they sounded great and then go take a hot shower and go to bed.
The group weaved through the crowd, some of which was sitting on other couches, some standing around, chattering, waiting for the next band to go on stage. Calhoun and the others were together by the bar. Jasper was bouncing on the balls of his feet and gesturing at the much taller man agitatedly. Chris was already tipping back a line of shots. The bassist had vanished. He did that a lot, which was probably why Honey never remembered his name.
"Come on!" the little bundle of fury was saying in a pushy tone. "Daisy can come, too. I bet she'd clean house!"
"I'm not a damn janitor," the girl in question informed him, insulted. Jasper turned his piercing green eyes on her.
"Daisy Baby, give your worse half his balls back," he ordered with a sneering smirk. "Then maybe he won't be such a pussy."
Calhoun just rolled his eyes, looping his arm around Daisy's shoulders as she slid up to his side. Honey wasn't sure when the two had become a pair; there didn't seem to be a demarcation between when they were separate and when they were together. She wondered if they had been an item back in Amity and had just not shown it during initiation.
"He's not going to the Mats with you and neither are his balls," Daisy declared with a smirk of her own, drawing a chuckle from the big Amity - big Dauntless now. Jasper made a sound of absolute disgust.
"The what?" Honey asked, curiosity waylaying her quick exit plan.
"The kid doesn't know about the Mats? What the fuck, you two?" The little spitfire seemed more incensed than usual. Even after six months, Honey had not shaken the nickname. Not everyone used it, but enough that everyone seemed to know it. She'd managed to break five feet since her last physical, topping out two inches above. Maybe if she tacked on a few more, people would let the unflattering moniker go.
Beth's frown had returned, but without the soft eyes. "She doesn't need to go down there."
"Where don't I need to go? What are you guys talking about?"
Jasper's intensely bright gaze turned to her. They were almost on eye-level. "It's fighting for points," he told her, all teeth. "Every night, down in the old training quarter. It's still early enough to sign up. You in?"
Honey felt a little electric tickle run up her spine. She hadn't fought since initiation, only light sparring or working with a dummy whenever her current mentor did their upkeep routine. Her fingers twitched at her sides. Jasper seemed to see something in her face, though she couldn't imagine what. Whatever it was, it made his grin widen and his eyes practically shine.
The old training quarter, where initiation used to take place before the massive gym she'd trained in, was located off the eastern tunnels of the Dauntless compound. It was chilly and dark and it was easy to see why they'd changed venues. A crowd was milling about, the air thick with eager excitement to get started. Jasper pulled her through the throng to a wall where a large chalkboard had been bolted in place. A bald man with more piercings than she could count was standing before it, writing down names in the slots as people came up to sign in.
"Hey, Dante, write me up, man," Jasper shouted to be heard over the din of voices behind them. Baldy jotted his name into a space beside another. Most of the names on the board appeared to be male, but not all of them. The pairings didn't seem to take gender into consideration. "Put the kid up there, too!"
Dante turned, brows furrowed in confusion until he saw her, then they jumped up to where his hairline should have been.
"You serious, sugar?" he asked her, seeming genuinely concerned.
"What are the rules?" Honey inquired.
"It's about take-downs. The ref calls the slams. Drop your huck three times to win," he explained.
"Anything barred?" At that question, Jasper's manic, wild grin returned.
"Nothin' in the eyes. No intentional bone break. No sleeper or submission holds."
"Yeah, put me up," she told him, feeling her own lips bowing upward. Baldy eyed her for a moment, then shrugged. He turned and scribbled the word "kid" on the board. Great.
She saw there was already a name beside it. Four. Even better.
"Four and… Kid? Who the fuck is Kid?" Honey stepped forward, into the empty space where a mat lay on the ground. There were three of them set up, so three fights could happen at once; which was necessary, since there were so many people itching to brawl. "Oh. That kid."
Four stepped into the space as well, frowning at her as though he was disappointed. That didn't do much to brighten her day. He walked onto the mat and Honey met him there as people started shouting predictions and bets at each other.
"What are you doing here?" her former instructor asked.
"I needed to blow off some steam," she told him with a half shrug. "Been having a bad day."
He smirked, somberly amused, and gave his head a little shake. "It's not about to get any better."
"Can't get any worse," she replied cavalierly. The ref squared them off and let them loose.
It took three minutes. Honey lay on the mat, her left arm, both hips, and right knee screaming with familiar pain. Four stood over her, looking almost apologetic, not even sweating. She laughed up at him.
"Wanna go again?"
When Eric strode into his office the next morning his customary twenty minutes early, Honey was already perched on the corner of his big, black steel desk, thumbing her way through the scroll.
"Get off my desk," he ordered, moving to sit behind it. She hopped up.
"Morning to you, too," she said with a smirk. He looked up at her with his usual stoic impatience, but Honey still blinked in surprise. His left eye was ringed in deep eggplant and there was a gash along the ridge of his cheekbone held closed with two small butterflies.
"Notes?" he demanded simply, holding out a hand. She pointed to the file resting directly in front of him. He picked it up and leaned back in his chair, opening the folder. As he looked over her work, he asked, "Why are you so chipper?"
He'd asked it snidely, but the man wasn't wrong. She was visibly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that morning, despite the aches in her body after her less than stellar premier in the Mats. Or maybe because of them.
"Had a good night, that's all," she shrugged. He let out a silent little scoff, but said nothing on the matter.
"So, talk to me about this dog unit of yours," he ordered, still not looking up. Honey explained the concept to him: using the dogs to find people based on scent. There were other applications as well. They could be implemented on Patrol, dealing with violent Factionless. Additionally, there was the potential for finding contraband or even hidden corpses, should the need arise. Eric seemed to begrudgingly accept that the concept could be useful.
"I want daily updates on your progress," he told her. "I don't want to catch you slacking off."
"When have I ever slacked off?" Honey demanded incredulously, taking her notes back. His brows went up, lips curling just slightly at her tone and the fact that she'd snapped back at him at all.
"You did have a good night," the leader declared, amused and intrigued. He'd never looked at her that way before. His slate eyes were speculative and she couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking, but it made heat creep up her back and over her shoulders.
"I'm gonna get to work," she said in a rush, then spun to hurry out of his office and get away from that almost teasing little smile he had given her.