"I'm a good friend and an excellent lover, I can fool myself just like no other person can, I'm turning into a twisted man," - Last Night I Dreamt, The Wombats

There were days where he found himself believing that he was actually okay. That things were improving, that he was bettering himself and those around him. It was easy to slip into a routine, to work behind a desk and shut off everything but the most basic parts needed to function through an eight hour day. He smiled politely at co-workers, talked about pointless things like weather and the latest news in the ongoing war on the bias between the genetically pure and the genetically damaged. He pretended to easily swallow the prejudice, took their double sided compliments -"You're doing surprisingly well for a GD - we're impressed"- and he didn't even complain about how he was far better than those ranked above him solely for their genetics. He would go home, go to bed, and repeat this cycle. Rinse, wash, repeat. The trick was in finding a pattern to follow. These days were the ones that allowed him to hope that he was actually capable of change - sometimes even allowed him to feel almost grateful that, in the end, he'd had the strength to change his mind and not erase himself. He could honestly believe that maybe Four had been right all along, that he really had the courage and the strength to do this on his own merit, no short cuts. That things were finally looking up.

Then there were days like this one.

There were days where he stopped congratulating people for getting a better position than him, for stepping over his head even when he knew, he knew that he was more capable than those GP sacks of shit. Days where he found himself cornering a co-worker in an alley after hours, someone who was typically easy to talk to and friendly. Someone with a family. He had his hands on that man's throat, staring into bulging, bloodshot eyes, and found that he still enjoyed the rush of pleasure that accompanied being the one in control of someone else's life. When the body in front of him collapsed and he finally felt the cold bite of rain against his face - that was when the ache for a reset settled in and made a home in his chest once more, reminding him of the truth. He knew this was long overdue - things had been good for a while but they'd run their course. There were always days like this, where he knew, plain and simple, that he could not and would not change the way he operated. It hurt to remember who he was beneath the layers he'd been building over the last few months. At least he could claim that he tried, right? That had to count for something. He took a moment to check and make sure the man he'd been throttling wasn't dead - after finding a pulse he walked away at a brisk pace, shaking out the tension in his hands. Choking was sore work for digits that had grown unused to such exercises. Moments like those were the ones that made him believe in the GD propaganda, even if only to have something to blame his actions on.

It turned out to be surprisingly easy to fit everything that made up who he was as an individual into a small suitcase. Almost funny, really, how he was able to erase any sign that he'd lived in the dank one bedroom apartment for nearly eight months in a matter of fifteen minutes. It only reminded him of the horrifying, nagging terror that always lingered, just out of sight, threatening to consume him any time he stopped to think about how truly small he was. How little he mattered in the scale of things. He packed his life away that night and caught a bus out of Milwaukee without so much as a glance back - he didn't even turn in his resignation. He knew that the next day people from his office would be gathering around a cake with a meager congratulatory message for the poor man he'd beaten in an alley. Maybe they'd do it at the hospital; they'd croon over his injuries and talk about how they knew that Hayes boy was no good from the start. How could he have been, after all he'd done to the infamous Tris Prior? Maybe they'd blame it on his genetics - something inside him knew for a fact that they would. He scoffed at the idea, which earned him a nasty look from the older man across the aisle from him. If he weren't so tired he might have attacked that guy, too. Instead he slept.

There were some days Peter found himself wishing, longing, for a world where the Stiff let him die - where the bullet met the back of his skull and he became just another casualty of war in the Amity compound. Would the kind hearted faction have buried him, spoken kind words about the stranger they allowed into their lives? He imagined that she would never have forgiven herself, had she let him die; it was just like her to make decisions for other people without their consent to spare her conscience. He didn't often sink into that sort of thinking, though, after all, the things he'd done and would continue to do were for his own survival, weren't they? Not just because of that sick sense of pleasure, of pride, of power, that came from the fear he was capable of bringing out in a person? It was hard to draw a line when everything he did was so murky and distasteful - where did survival give way to sadism? Perseverance to cruelty? Time only served to sour him, his guilt festering like an untreated wound in his gut, growing and aching and threatening to consume him.

There were days like this, where he found himself on the precipice of something, hovering over a thirty foot drop with his feet right on the edge of a building rooftop and he allowed himself to think it might be easier this way. He could close his eyes and pretend he's entering Dauntless like he did back before the war, but the factions are gone now, and there will be no one who would call this an act of bravery. He wouldn't be remembered in loud, drunken shouts for daring to venture into the Great Unknown. He'd just be a coward who inconvenienced the person, or people, that ended up with the job of scraping him off the pavement. GD's no doubt. In these moments Peter felt powerless - and it was unbearable. He stepped back, then, falling from the speed of his movements onto the rough cobblestones covering the roof until he was practically skittering from the lip he'd been standing on as though it were the maw of a great beast threatening to devour him. He didn't stop until his back pressed itself firmly against the door he'd come through earlier on impulse, unable to feel the little rocks digging into and cutting his palms. Panic quickly consumed him then, becoming his entire world. There were no tears, he still couldn't bring himself to cry, even now, but his chest was threatening to cave in and that was somehow worse.

After he faced himself on the roof and returned a coward, he took to drifting, picking up work where he could, stealing where he couldn't. He redeemed and diminished himself more times than he could count; helping a stranger, beating an acquaintance, smiling at a pretty girl, stealing from donation jars. When he could afford it he drank himself into oblivion, when he couldn't afford it, he fought - it helped to take the edge off. The jobs came and went quicker than he could even keep up with them. He turned self destruction into a work of art, painted in bruises and blood and betrayal. After running from Milwaukee he never managed to stay in one place for very long before the darkness he'd been told he could fix in himself would come bubbling up to the surface. Before his own nature ruined everything again and again and again. The cycle repeated until it was hard to tell one crime from the next - he'd hopped a train and expected to be able to jump at his leisure, but the conductor just kept upping the speed, so he was trapped in that car, his demons pressing in around him and breathing fire down his neck.

At some point the demons had to win out, didn't they?

So this one is a little shorter than the rest will be, I promise to have more updated asap!

As always comments and likes are much appreciated - they let me know you like what you're seeing and want more, after all. Feel free to leave suggestions or requests!