InsaneJournal

Characters: Peter Hale.
Location: His house.
Time: 24 October.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Wrestling with the Dreams.
Status: Narrative, complete.

With his dreams only progressively getting worse and the changes in his senses, which Peter was reluctantly tying to the fact this other version of himself was some kind of creature, there was a lot pulling him in every different direction. Enough so that he was barely around for Cora if she needed him, or for Derek if he did. Since coming back together with his family, Peter had always made an effort to talk to them as often as he could, but the nature of these dreams were causing a rift he couldn't control between them and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Even so, it was easier to admit that he missed seeing them than owning up to the fact that he was terrified of becoming a monster. The words of that kid repeated in his head often. It was human nature to become fixated on things like that, to hear the solitary voice of negativity over the chorus of hope. Somehow, Peter was almost thankful for that because at the very least, it meant he was still human. It was twisted, but nothing else in his life lately made sense. Each dream that came was another death, was fraught with violence and blood and anger. What bothered Peter the most was the fact that he could understand this other version of himself. In his dreams, Peter could feel what he felt and was overwhelmed with that anger and want for revenge, but underneath that, there was fear and guilt and sadness and insanity. No one but Peter and that dream version of himself would ever really understand that horrible combination of emotions, how they felt like a blanket of smoke that would suffocate you before the fire would ever peel away at you. Every morning Peter had one of those dreams, which was more often than not, he woke up with that heavy feeling on his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs as if it wanted to replace it with all of those emotions. It was hard to wake up with that. It made his whole body feel like it didn’t belong to him, it made him feel out of touch with himself. Some mornings, Peter felt like he was trapped in a dark corner, clawing helplessly to get out. Some mornings the idea that he couldn’t fight this came with a voice that snarled in his mind, a terrible echo of his own voice. Peter felt weak, he was tired, he was scared. Some mornings started out hopeless, and it took a lot for him to get up, to get dressed, to leave the house. The physical toll that took on his body left him in pain, and it was eye opening how much it could affect him. Dealing with that, the mental and the physical and the emotional strain was a lot of work, it wasn’t an easy battle and it was going to be long. He was taking steps, but they were small, the distances minute. It was progress, but it was slow. Peter had already admitted to someone, to Raven, that he knew this wouldn’t be easy. It was uphill, and it was tiring. This was the kind of battle where the voice in the back of your head reminded you of how easy it would be to just quit, but Peter couldn’t give up. He made a promise to Cora, but most of all, he didn’t want to lose who he was or lose what he had left of his family. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have days where he wanted to stop trying, that he didn’t have days when he woke up and wondered why he bothered. At first, Peter struggled with how to control that anger, how to temper it. When he had complained of migraines, someone had suggested meditation, and he had said he would look into it, but didn’t. How could something like that help? To him, it seemed ridiculous and not worth trying, but as the dreams started to get worse, as that anger started to wind itself through him like ivy, denying his problems wasn’t something he could do anymore. That post he made was the breaking point, it was when he finally realised that he couldn’t really help himself alone but also when he knew that he needed to admit to what he believed, what he felt — that he thought what he was in his dreams was a monster. Peter had to admit that he was afraid he, too, was turning into a monster. He had told Allison that it was desperation that brought him to that point, he wasn’t lying. It made Peter feel weak, pathetic. Of all the things he hated, feeling weak was right at the top. He had spent years feeling inadequate, overlooked and it really wore on him. Peter never wanted to feel like he wasn’t in control, but with this, he wasn’t in complete control. Controlling the dreams or controlling what that other version of himself did or felt wasn’t something he could do. In the beginning, Peter had stubbornly tried to stay awake, as if it could stop him from dreaming. He tried to control the dreams by stopping himself from falling asleep. It didn’t work, it couldn’t have, but he had tried that because he didn’t want to believe that this was something that was stronger than he was. Now, Peter put a lot of effort into trying to manage this. The things he did didn’t always work, sometimes he was afraid it wasn’t helping or that he was really fighting a battle he couldn’t win, but if he stopped trying, if he didn’t keep himself consistent, he was only going to fail. All Peter had was that motivation to keep going. That motivation keeps him moving when he is in pain and doesn’t want to try, it pushes him forward when he wants to turn back. Eventually motivation would turn into habit, and maybe one day, Peter will be able to wake up without feeling like he was being crushed to death. Today that crushing weight was there. But today, he still got up and that mattered to him.