Hi! I have a request for Peter Hayes(I js started reading Divergent for the second time and I'm on a roll). I'm thinking y/n is a transfer(amity..?) and she's a bit too kind to be dauntless, but way tougher than she seems(because whats a fanfic without trauma obvi), and she starts getting close to Peter because he reminds her of parts of amity, so she's the only person who really sees good in him, and he's the only one who sees that she's really strong, before he stabs Edward in the eye, and she like loses all her trust? Idk I'm just feeling like I need a super angsty betrayal rn.
requested by @sugarcooki, i hope you enjoy!
'Dangerous Games' - peter hayes x reader
masterlist
You can’t tell who is getting the most stares: the transfer from Abnegation or the transfer from Amity. You’d met Tris on the train after the Choosing Ceremony, her drab grays had made her distinct among the blacks and whites and blues. However, as unnerving as it is to see a Stiff in this arena of bravery, your yellow garments make you stand out more than a canary in a coal mine. No one knows how long it’s been since someone from either of your factions transferred to Dauntless, but it feels like an eternity. That only makes it more stunning that both of you are here right now.
You can’t let it get to you. You know why you’re here, anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter. They try to figure you out at dinner that first night, staring at you shamelessly over their meals like you were a zoo exhibit.
“I don’t get it,” Christina says, cocking her head to the side to get a better look at you. “I mean, I understand leaving Abnegation, I’d get bored out of my mind. But wouldn’t you like it in Amity? I mean, they’re happy all the time. I never hear any complaints. What, were people too sweet? Did it rot your teeth or something?”
Next to her, Will snorts. “Pretty sure that only applies to sugar.”
Christina rolls her eyes. “You get my point. Seriously, though, why’d you do it? What’s so wrong with Amity?”
You force a calm smile. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with Amity.”
Will turns his questioning gaze onto you. “Then why’d you leave?”
For a second, your mind goes blank. For years now, you’ve thought of leaving your old faction behind, dreamed of it practically every night. You know exactly why you had to go. But these people have only ever lived in their home factions. They’ve never been to Amity, just heard about it. Word of mouth is often misleading. You have your reasons, but at this moment it occurs to you that they will never understand.
So, you just shrug casually. “Needed a change of pace. Guess the whole thing got old. Nothing interesting.”
Christina looks disappointed, but moves on to interrogate Tris more about Abnegation instead. You almost think you’ve managed to duck under the radar this time, and then a voice sounds from further down the bench.
“Bullshit.”
You glance to your side and notice a boy looking over his shoulder at you. You recognize him as Peter, one of the Candor transfers, already having made a name for himself as one of the harsher candidates this year.
“What?” You ask him.
He jerks his chin towards the group. “Your reason for transferring. It’s bullshit. I used to be a Candor, you know. We can spot a lie from a mile away.”
You regard him dismissively. “You left, didn’t you? Maybe you’re not as good at spotting a lie as you thought. There’s nothing interesting about me leaving Amity. Go look for gossip somewhere else.”
You make to turn back to your group, but Peter speaks before you can. “I know there’s something you’re not telling us. It’ll come out, but maybe you’ll just fail out before we get the chance to discover what it is.”
You grit your teeth and don’t answer him. When you look back at the group, you realize that they’ve all been listening in to your conversation with Peter.
Christina leans forward and gives you a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about him, Peter’s just an asshole. Honestly, I’m surprised he transferred. He sure seemed to love being rude to everyone back home and getting away with it because he was honest.”
You flash her a thankful smile and try to turn back to your meal, but inside, you’re still thinking about Peter’s words. Christina and the others may be your first friends here, but they were just as curious as Peter was. At least Peter made his intentions obvious. Say what you will about Dauntless, but no one’s hiding anything around here. Everyone wants to drag each other down, it’s as clear as day. If you look to your left and right, the people at this table aren’t just focused on their celebratory dinners, they’re thinking about who would be the easiest to crush. What matters is getting a top placement out of initiation for the job of your choosing. Everyone knows this, so there’s no point in lying. You can twist and scheme as much as you like, but nothing is more blatant than the body on a training mat after a fight. One winner, one loser. Plain and simple.
See, Peter’s right. You are hiding something about Amity. There is a reason you left your sweet, sunny home behind for the coldness of Dauntless steel. No one here knows what it’s like in Dauntless because they, too, have only ever been at home– their homes, not yours. That’s the problem with the faction system, you suppose. All anyone sees is one very narrow view of how life is supposed to be, and so they cannot fathom what your life might have been like growing up, or why on earth you would want to leave the city’s most saccharine faction if it was so nice.
It wasn’t nice, that’s why. Sure, it was on the surface. Everyone’s words were sweet, their voices dripping with concern or praise whenever they crossed your path, but none of it was real. If any Candor visited, you think they’d die of shock. There have never been a prettier batch of lies than the ones told by Amity, and there are so many lies that it’s almost impossible to tell what people actually mean. You could go to town one day in a dress ripped to ribbons and everyone who saw you would run over to say how much they loved your new fashion choice and how brave it was to go for a deconstructed look! The second you turned away, they’d gossip about you until the cows came home. It’s just an excuse to chitchat with the neighbors, of course. They don’t mean anything by it.
There was one girl in particular who made your childhood a misery. She was a perfect Amity, it’s no surprise she stayed there after the Choosing Ceremony. You dreaded having her in your classes because she was always firing off the cruellest comments hidden under a veneer of charm. Everyone loved her, or maybe they were just scared of being her next target. There was never anything you could do about it, because her words were just sly enough to avoid being an outright insult. You couldn’t stand up to her, because that would involve aggressive language and get you a week’s worth of detention helping weed the school gardens.
The worst part is that you could never tell who agreed with her– it felt like she had everyone in Amity under her sway. You’d think you made a friend, someone you could trust, and then after trusting them with your secrets, you’d see them out with your bully and you’d get this sinking feeling in your chest like you’d been betrayed. Soon enough, that girl was teasing you with things you only told your friend in confidence, and you’d have to wonder if you’d ever had a real friend or just someone sent to spy on you because they thought it was funny.
It felt like you couldn’t trust anyone. Nothing was real, not really– the people checking in on you were just filling an empathy quota set by their supervisors, and you’d heard rumors about food getting spiked with Peace Serum whenever your neighbors were getting a little too testy. Life was a pantomime, and with every year that passed, you felt your grip on the truth fading little by little.
You had always assumed that you would stay in Amity, just about everyone did. It wasn’t until you took the mandated Aptitude Test and got a different result that you seriously considered leaving. Of course you’d thought about it, a life without lies, but you had just assumed what went on in Amity would happen everywhere. When you went home from the test that night, though, you thought about the people from other factions you’d seen on your rare visits to the city. They seemed sure about themselves in a way you weren’t at home, like they could trust what they saw or else figure it out on their own.
It occurred to you at last that you could not stomach the rest of your life in the perfumed unreality of Amity. After that, the decision to transfer was obvious. You briefly considered Candor, but worried they’d be no better than Amity regarding hidden lies. Dauntless, though, Dauntless seemed like the polar opposite of anything Amity. In that way, it was perfect. Did you see yourself as a fighter, a killer? Only time would tell, but at least in Dauntless, you know exactly where you were.
So, early into initiation, when the leaders revealed the rankings, you weren’t as freaked out as everyone else. Honestly, you loved the idea. At any given moment, you knew your standing in your faction. Back in Amity, that would have been a lifeline. You’ve heard most initiates hate these lists of names, that the constant display of skill or lack thereof sets their minds afire with nerves, but they don’t know how good they have it.
You take that as a sign that you really are meant for Dauntless after all. And, when you start doing well in training, and your name begins to steadily rise through the rankings, you’re certain you’re right. Everyone is stunned that an Amity could be halfway decent at proudly Dauntless feats of strength and brutality, and they take their misplaced assumption as an excuse to hit you twice as hard in an attempt to knock you down to where they think you belong. It’s not fun, and leaves you with more than a couple of painful bruises, but again, it’s all so obvious that you want to laugh out loud. Everything is so clear here.
Well, almost everything. There’s still one murky patch on your horizon, and that’s Peter Hayes. Honestly, you just can’t understand him. Everyone around you says that Peter is not to be trusted, that he only gets close to people to figure out how to cut them down. That makes sense by itself, so why is it that Peter finds a space beside you at every meal, every training drill? Why would he keep making comments under his breath to you when no one else can hear, and why would a smile split his otherwise moody face whenever you have to bite back a laugh?
It makes no sense. If you knew what was good for you, you would keep your distance. You came here for straight lines, obvious risks, and Peter is deception walking. There’s only one reason people leave Candor, Christina had told you secretly, after she’d caught you walking back from practice with Peter by your side, just close enough to touch, far enough to make you wish he would. They love lying so much they don’t care if they get caught or not, so they go somewhere it won’t matter.
You’d whispered back to her, Is that why you left? And waited for her to roll her eyes, annoyed, and go back to her bunk. Still, her words had played over in your mind longer than you care to admit. Peter is a liar. They’re all liars, the ex-Candor. But Peter’s putting a lot of time into you, surely more than anyone would for a mere backstabbing. If Peter’s just playing with you, it’s an awfully consuming game.
The questions circle through your mind day after day. When Peter finds you again, after hours in the training gym, your musings seem to echo through the hall with every blow of your fist against the punching bags.
It was as if he appeared out of nowhere, black clothes blending in with the shadows of the gym. “You know, for a so-called pansy Amity, you do seem to train more than anyone else.”
You glance over your shoulder. Of all the people to come visit you during one of your night training sessions, you can’t say you’re surprised it’s Peter. He’s been more present than ever as of late; feels like you can’t take a breath without him noticing.
“Not everyone,” you call back. “You’re here too, aren’t you?”
Peter ambles over to you, seemingly indifferent about the whole thing, the dark room, the tense shadows wrapping around the two of you. “You’re working, I’m not. Maybe I’m just here to watch.”
You roll your eyes and turn back to the punching bag so you don’t have to look at him anymore, so you won’t risk saying something stupid. “If you want a show, I think some of your old Candor buddies are trying to sneak into some parties a few floors up.”
“I couldn’t care less about them,” Peter scoffs. The rest goes unspoken, that the one he really cares about is you.
You force a fake laugh, but on the inside, you’re afire. “What, already bored of the other initiates? Doesn’t bode well for the rest of training, does it?”
“Not everyone bores me,” Peter says offhandedly. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I have noticed,” you reply. “You stare an awful lot for someone who doesn’t care about any of us.”
“You stare a lot too,” Peter fires back. “Half the time I look at you, you’re already looking at me.”
“So you admit you look at me?” You counter.
For a fraction of a second, Peter’s face freezes, and then it breaks into a wide, sharp grin. “Maybe I do. What’s it to you?”
“Why do you look?” You press. “Everyone else moved on from the fact that I was Amity ages ago. Don’t tell me you’re still trying to figure out why I transferred.”
“No,” Peter decides, “That’s old news. I already know why you’re here.”
You get the odd sensation of a pit opening in your stomach. “Yeah?” You try to sound casual. “And why’s that?”
He leans in, close enough that you can see the reflection of the lights in his eyes as they shine at you. “You’re perfect for this place. It’s obvious. You want to hurt people as badly as I do.”
For some reason, you feel relieved. He hasn’t figured you out yet, he just thinks you’re like him. Having Peter Hayes think you’re built of the same bloodthirsty material as him is probably a bad thing, but you can’t stop a spike of something like pride from ripping through you.
“You’re wrong,” you say decisively. “I don’t want to hurt people. I just don’t feel like being pushed around anymore.”
“Sure, sure,” Peter says, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Me too. If someone ever tried to get in my way again, I’d probably knock ‘em down, throw a punch, maybe even get out a knife–”
“Peter,” you say sharply, and he breaks off, grinning even despite the serious expression you’re fighting to keep on your face. “I wouldn’t do any of that. And neither would you.”
“No?” He asks, eyebrows raised. “Clearly you haven’t heard what the others are saying about me. They think I’m a monster.”
“Well, some would say you can’t believe everything you hear,” you fire back. “You may be good at building up an image, but I think both you and I know that not everything your old faction believes about you is true.”
Curiosity flashes across Peter’s face before he can stop himself. “Alright. What am I, then? Don’t tell me you think I’ve got good in me, I’ll throw up.”
You roll your eyes. “Maybe I do. You’re the one who’s here keeping me company on a dark night when any other initiate would take this as an opportunity to beat me up to keep me low in the rankings.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here,” Peter says, face suddenly sinister. He takes a threatening step towards you. “Maybe I’ve had my fun talking and I’m about to stick you in the infirmary for the next week.”
You meet his gaze steadily. “Do it, then. Throw a punch.”
Peter holds his stance for a second longer, then relaxes. “Nah, I’m just kidding. I’m not the type to beat up on a harmless Amity with no witnesses.”
“I know you’re not the type,” you say, then, with a bit more heat, “I’m not harmless. And I’m no Amity.”
“I know,” Peter says calmly, and you get the sense that he means it, every bit of it. He knows you’re a threat, and he doesn’t see you as your old faction. He might be the first. Even Christina and the others keep side-eyeing you when they think you can’t see, as if Amity is something that can be studied on a person, that might rub off on them if they spend too much time around you. Peter is the only one who assumes that you can change, that you might be just as much a Dauntless as the rest of them, if not more so.
His good opinion means more to you than you care to admit. “Alright then,” you say as casually as you can, “Don’t fight me. Keep lurking if you like.”
You make a show of turning away from him back to the punching bag, but you’ve only landed a few strikes before Peter’s opening his mouth again.
“You’re moving while you’re still off balance,” he says quietly. “Take your time. You’re only half as strong if you’re not sure of your footing.”
“I won’t have time to wait when I’m in the ring,” you counter.
Peter scoffs, but the sound is fond. “I’m just trying to help, you know. I’ll just shut up, then.”
“No,” you say too quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just trying to think things through, that’s all. How am I supposed to be patient in a real fight?”
“You’ll have more time than you think,” Peter replies. “Most of these guys need time to catch their breath, anyway. Just give yourself a quick second, then go back in.”
You nod. “Like this?” You try a few more punches, this time allowing yourself a heartbeat longer between each blow. You can tell that something’s different, that you’re able to hit more squarely, even before Peter nods in satisfaction.
“Yeah, that’s good.”
You grin over at him. “You’d make a halfway decent trainer. Maybe next year it’ll be you, Four, and Eric leading initiation.”
Peter shudders. “No thanks. I intend to head to leadership.”
You shrug. “You’d be good at that.”
Peter’s eyes dart to you, genuinely surprised. “You mean that.”
“I do,” you say.
Peter holds your eyes a second longer then makes himself look away, a small smile rising to his lips. “You’re probably the only other initiate who’d say that.”
“Who cares about them?” You ask. “I didn’t think you were the type to let anyone else get to you.”
“Of course not,” Peter says disbelievingly. “Do I really strike you as the type to cave to peer pressure?”
“No,” you answer steadily, “but I don’t think you’re an uncaring killer, either. I think there’s more to you than you’re letting on.”
“Funny,” Peter quips, “I was about to say the same thing about you.”
It’s not the first time he’s insinuated that you’re hiding something, but for some reason, tonight it feels less like an accusation and more like a declaration of admiration. You’re alike, the two of you. You rise above the crowds. You have depth that others don’t.
You finish the rest of your late night training session like you intend, but everything feels different with him there, more charged. You feel wide awake even though the rest of the faction is asleep. It’s as if the whole world narrows to just the two of you, the weight of his eyes on the bruises on your knuckles, his breathing aligning with yours as you make your way through two quick jabs, one strike, a step forward then back. You’re not honestly sure by the end if you’re two people or just one single mind. And, when he walks back with you to the dorm, stalking silently through the darkened halls, you keep feeling the brush of his fingers against yours in the shadows of the night. Neither of you call each other on it.
Everything is different after that night. Peter has been increasingly present as of late, but it doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for something anymore, as if you’ve found a threshold and leaped over it. Instead of watching silently, or only making quips under his breath when he’s certain no one can hear but you, his presence is active now, commanding you to pay attention. When you wake in the morning, his eyes flick to you over and over again, making certain that you won’t be late to training. He picks you as his sparring partner, and if he can’t, he shoots dark glares at the person working with you instead. He walks back with you every time, again close enough to touch, but far enough to make you be the one to make that last move. Sometimes you do, if you can convince yourself that the halls are empty enough and you won’t be spotted. It appears your newfound Dauntless bravery doesn’t always extend to the judgment of your peers.
Your late-night training sessions take on a different shade, too. He’s more open there, when the eyes of the world are not upon him. He tells you things about himself, why he left Candor, what he’s hoping to find here. You talk, too, about the vicious side of Amity. He seems surprised, but not completely taken aback, as if he had expected it. You get the sense that your initial impression of Candor as a surface coating of truth protecting a dark underbelly of lies was true, or Peter wouldn’t be so certain when talking about how appearances can be so deceiving.
There are times at night when you’re certain he’s going to kiss you. Sometimes, you’re overwhelmed by the sureness of it, like when the two of you are lying on your backs side by side on a mat after a round on the ring, chests heaving, and he rolls over onto one side to look down at you. There’s a hunger in his eyes for something more than blood, for the heart within your chest. He catches himself though, always just in the nick of time, right before you both do something you’ll regret. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for his control or hate it.
Your friends try to warn you off Peter once it becomes obvious that the two of you are growing closer together. Christina especially keeps insisting that he’s cruel, that he’ll tell you things to mess up your head just to get ahead in the rankings. She’s so certain that you start to doubt yourself, but then you spend another night with Peter, and get to see that soft smile he’s starting to let slip out when no one is around but you, and you just can’t believe her. Peter has a cruel streak, you’re not denying that, but you don’t think he’d hurt you. Selfishly, you almost think that’s enough to justify the rest.
Maybe you were so caught up in wanting to believe him that you forgot where you were, what the stakes of the initiation ranks might mean for everyone here. Maybe you wanted to believe that if you could change from the mold of your past faction, so could he. Maybe you forgot that cruel boys don’t lose their shape all that easily, and even if he wants to pretend to be soft and sweet with you, that sharp edge appears eventually. It always does. You of all people should know that.
A scream splits the dark air of the initiate’s bunks late one night, and even then, with an odd coppery scent billowing around you, with the howls of one of the trainees rattling in your ears, you don’t think to suspect Peter until you have no other choice. The screams are loud, blood-curdling, cries of agony you had never before heard from a human being. You hear rustling around you as initiates wake up to this living nightmare. Someone shuffles around, looking for a light switch, and, finding it, drowns the room in blinding light.
You blink a few times, trying to shake the spots from your vision. As your eyes adjust, you see people huddling around a figure a few beds from you. Edward’s bed, you think dully, but why would everyone be so worried about Edward? It takes your sleep-addled brain a few more moments to realize that he’s the one screaming, that the copper stench of blood is coming from his bed, from the gaping wound in his head that he’s clutching with one hand.
Your stomach lurches and you have to fight a wave of nausea. It’s his eye, you realize with horror, someone’s cut out his eye. No one else is in the room and you didn’t hear the door. It would have to be one of you.
Tris hurries over to Edward and starts pressing cloth to his head to try to stem the outpour of blood. Always selfless, Tris, your mind contributes helpfully. Always looking out for others. Guess you really can’t take the Abnegation out of the girl after all.
It makes you think about other people here from old factions, how those trends might inspire them to do something worse than help somebody. And only then, as if in a dream, do you start to think about who might be cruel enough to blind somebody just to get the top slot in initiation. There was only one name right below Edward’s, of course. Everyone knew the number one rank was between Edward and– and Peter.
Peter, who is sitting calmly on his bed, watching the proceedings. Unlike the rest of the room, he doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised that something like this might have happened. You realize that he’s absentmindedly picking at something under one of his nails, a dark stain, a dried brown smear on the palm of his dominant hand.
It’s blood. It’s Edward’s blood.
It hits you now, the full weight of how wrong you were about Peter. So many people tried to warn you, and you had too much pride to listen, so sure of yourself about people’s true characters and first impressions and all of that nonsense. If you had just looked– if you had just listened–
You wonder if he passed over your bed with the blade, if he had stared at your sleeping body and debated killing two birds with one stone before carrying on to Edward. No, you decide self-loathingly, he would have no need to kill you. You are no threat to him, not when you fell for his scheme so perfectly.
Christina has the kindness not to comment on your silence that day, nor why you no longer go to Peter during practice sessions but stay there with your friends. You do see a few ‘told-you-so’ looks exchanged behind your back, but everyone’s so shaken up from what happened to Edward that they let you off easy. Besides, it must be obvious that you’re beating yourself up enough that their judgement would hardly matter.
Peter only tries to talk to you once after that night with Edward. It was casual, a hand reaching out to you at the end of a training session, a low voice asking how your fights were that day. You can’t even bring yourself to look at him, sure that you can still see the ghost of Edward’s dried blood on those fingertips, and end up forcing yourself to walk right past him without a second thought. It hurts like a gunshot to the chest, like a knife in the eye. You can see him startle in your peripheral vision, start to turn to you as if to ask why, but you’re out the door before he gets the chance.
Peter gets the picture after that. He stops trying to walk next to you in the corridors and doesn’t try to train with you any more. He doesn’t even show up in the gym after hours anymore, although you swear you can still feel the ghost of him watching you when it’s just you and the bruise in your knuckles and the weight of having misjudged him so terribly.
He still watches, though. Still waits at the end of the ring while you’re fighting. He won’t let you go, not completely, and one night when you’re walking back from a party he finally gets his chance. You’re on edge, head pounding from too-loud music that you were always one line away from recognizing, and decide to head out to the roofline to clear your head. The night air is crisp, takes your breath away, and you decide to wander over to the railing and stare out over the city. It’s beautiful at night, with the buildings sprawling out before you like an old photograph. You can imagine people in every window, opening every door, waking and sleeping and going about their business. A whole world, and to you it’s just one pinprick of light in this immense darkness.
A sudden voice splits the peace of the night, and you’re instantly on your guard again. “And here I thought I’d never get a chance to see you.”
You whip around to see Peter quietly emerging from the door you’d just left. “Peter,” you say breathlessly, then remember all the weight and ache of his betrayal and look away again.
He folds his arms across his chest. “Still won’t talk to me? I see Christina got to you at last. Funny, I really thought you could see through all that.”
“It’s not Christina,” you spit at him. “You stabbed Edward when he was sleeping, Peter. You blinded him. He was top of the rankings and now he’s factionless. His whole life is over because you backstabbed him.”
Peter’s gaze hardens. “If he was top of the rankings, he should have known to be ready for anything. A real Dauntless would know better than to let his guard down in a room full of competitors.”
“He was asleep,” you say disbelievingly. “We fight in training, sure, but not in the dorms. You cheated and lied. You made me think you were better than this. I should have listened to them in the first place.”
Peter’s eyes look hollow. “If you fooled yourself into thinking I’m a saint, that’s your fault, not mine. I’ve known what I am for a very long time. I am the perfect Dauntless, whether you want to believe that or not.”
“You weren’t,” you stutter out. “You could have been something else. For a while there, I really thought–”
“Thought what?” Peter asks scornfully. “That I was a nice guy? That there was any world in which I stopped wanting to win and just decided to roll over because people deserved it more? No. If Edward deserved to win, he wouldn’t have given up. You know he did. I just wanted to show it to people. Now everyone knows he was a coward who would rather drop out than try to live with discomfort.”
“Discomfort,” you laugh incredulously. “He’s blind.”
“I left him an eye,” Peter retorts.
You shake your head. “You’re insane, Peter.”
“But you liked it for a while,” he says. “Didn’t you?”
You can’t answer, the words cling like dust to your throat. You try to push past him, but Peter grabs your arm, stopping you from going too far. “You can think whatever you want of me,” he says hollowly, “but I have always been this way. Don’t blame me for your high expectations.”
“I never expected you to be perfect,” you hiss back. “I just wanted a friend. You’ll never have that, Peter, not again, not after this. We’re all too scared of you to ever let you get close again.”
He pulls back for a moment, wounded, and you take that opportunity to yank your arm back and storm away. Selfishly, you want Peter to call after you, to stop you, but for once he lets you go without a fight and you’re gone, disappearing back into the quiet darkness of the Dauntless corridors.
You’re distracted. You feel the absence of him like a phantom limb. It affects you more than you care to admit. You have a fight two days after that, one you should win with a decent effort, and you find yourself zoning out halfway through. You try to force yourself to focus, but your mind is elsewhere. You don’t see the hit that knocks your legs out from under you, and your arms seem to move far too slowly to block your head when the fist comes at you. There’s an intense blast of pain, and then you’re not in the gym at all anywhere, but floating somewhere in the darkness, untethered and spinning in endless nothingness.
Your eyes blink open some time later, after hours or days or maybe just a few minutes. Your world is shaking slightly, side to side with a rhythmic motion, and you realize that you’re being carried by someone. You open your eyes a little more, although the lights hurt. There are arms wrapped around you, someone running with you to who knows where. You look up, squinting, and realize that it’s Peter who has you, Peter who is running at a full sprint.
He glances down at you, realizing you’re awake. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t fall asleep again.”
He’s saying something about a bad hit to your head, but you’re tired, tired from weeks of intense training, of late nights and bad habits and exhaustion, and the thought of sleep really is quite nice. Your eyes start to flicker shut again. Dimly, you hear Peter’s voice taking on a pleading tone, but it’s too late now. The darkness swallows you whole once again.
You don’t wake for a while, of that you’re certain. Even then, you shift between sleeping and consciousness, finally able to pull yourself solidly into reality with great effort. When you’re finally able to sit up and look around, you realize that you’re in the infirmary. Your head aches, as if it’s been punched into the ground, which you suppose it has.
You groan lowly, remembering the fight. It had felt like you were moving through water, every action slowed and dull. The pained sound from your throat draws the attention of someone in the chair next to your hospital bed, who sits forward intently. It’s Peter, you feel with an unwanted rush of fondness. He’s the one who got you here and he stayed the whole time.
“How are you feeling?” His voice is rough, tired.
You wince. “Good enough, considering. How long have you been here?”
He shrugs, not quite looking at you. “Needed to make sure you were alright. That was some hit you took.”
“A proper Dauntless would have said if I was weak enough to lose that fight, I would deserve the hit.” You don’t say it kindly. Peter takes it like a blow.
“I already know you’re good enough,” he says, head low like a kicked dog. “You weren’t yourself today. Doesn’t mean I want to see you get beaten like that. When you stopped moving–”
He cuts himself off suddenly, a pained expression twisting across his face. You look back at him, really look at him, in a way you haven’t allowed yourself to look in a while. He’s still every inch the boy you wish he was. His dark hair still curls slightly over his temples, and his eyes shine even with the poor fluorescents of the infirmary. You’ve always thought him handsome, a feeling that hasn’t gone away despite your brain telling you otherwise.
“I thought you were gone,” Peter says abruptly. “You were just lying there. Scared me.”
You reach over and lay your hand on his. “I’m still here.”
He’s not done yet, the words pouring from him like blood from a wound. “I hated the way you looked at me after what I did to Edward. I don’t regret blinding him, I don’t, it was the right move, let me in exactly where I needed to be, but I hated that it meant I lost you. Didn’t feel as good being at the top when you weren’t around anymore. It’s all bitter now. I’m not a good person, Y/N, I never have been, and I’ll keep doing shit to people if it gets me where I need to be, I just– I wanted you to know that I miss you, that’s all. You got one thing right about me. I wasn’t happy being alone.”
He leans back slightly, chest heaving with the force of all that truth. Somewhere in there is still a Candor’s spirit. He will always feel better after he spills his guts.
“I forgive you,” you say quietly. “And I missed you, too.”
Peter meets your eyes at last. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Don’t make me find out about your bad decisions at the same time as everyone else,” you counter. “I can’t stop you from doing what you do, but I hated feeling like you betrayed me. You tell me everything or you’re done.”
A flicker of a smile ghosts his lips. “You want me to be honest?”
“I want you to be talkative,” you decide. “I was getting bored with you.”
This time he grins in earnest. “I knew there was a killer in you somewhere.”
“Not a killer,” you answer, “but a Dauntless for sure.”
“Oh, that we all knew,” Peter laughs quietly. “I figured that out on the first day.”
You glance at him, curious. “How? Everyone else just saw some clueless Amity.”
He lifts a shoulder, pleased. “You stood up to me, then ignored me without a second thought. You were the most interesting thing I saw that whole day.”
You laugh at that. “You just wanted entertainment, you mean. You wanted a puzzle to solve.”
“Haven’t solved you yet,” Peter says. “Are you going to let me stay around long enough to get a second chance at figuring you out?”
You take a slow breath in, then out. The reasonable answer is to say no, because by now you know that Peter may be alluring and always one step out of reach, but he’s a bloody and twisted soul. If you go down this path too long, it’ll consume you. You know that.
You also know that you didn’t come to Dauntless to play it safe, but to live, and to live fully. “Yes,” you reply at last, “I think I will.”
For someone so dark and dangerous, Peter certainly has a wonderful smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”
He squeezes your hand once, twice. You smile to yourself with satisfaction. Peter may be using all of this as a game to keep himself busy while he stalks to the top of the rankings, but he’s forgotten one thing: you’re playing, too. He’s not the only one curious about just what makes a Dauntless initiate the way they are. The way you see it, you’ve just had one great view of the inner workings of a Candor. You’ve got a great many questions. It’s time to get some answers.
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