vale st. joseph | d2

Time.

He'd always lamented not having enough time. He was sixteen years old; the years vanished like they never existed, and he didn't care to remember them. Time was crucial in training. Metal collided against plastic as he struck again and again at practice dummies, against wood as he struck at the walls in anger when he failed. He was milliseconds too slow. Too uncontrolled. When he first enrolled in the Divergent Academy, he was praised for his raw talent. With time, they said, he would become well-rounded, highly-skilled, an incredible career. With time he'd be one of the best that District Two had ever seen, and as time kept passing, he wished it would all just stop.

And so it did. Or rather, it came close.

On the days that he was able to streak away from campus, away from expectations, he'd give whatever he had in order to get what he wanted, what he craved. And in those moments when he laid under the sun like a lazy dragon, smoke billowing from his mouth, anger seeping out of his body, time slowed down for once.

Vale never intended to start using the drugs on a regular basis. It was just a quick release, and then he could go back to life as usual at the academy. Yet, it was more fun to vanish in a haze of smoke than to focus on the ways that he had been failing himself, failing his people. He was already Dauntless - a true athlete - and he had passed Amity, the course of compassion. Vale genuinely cared for others, and he'd give the shirt off his back to help someone that mattered to him. Yet, in an environment like the academy, or Two as a whole, it was never enough. Kindness was never enough.

The St. Joseph family wasn't one that was particularly concerned with glory or bringing home victors, but it was almost an unspoken rule that one was expected to do something with themselves. Vale's father goofed off in high school but eventually got around to building a career and a (somewhat) happy home. His mother was almost as enamored with pills and smoke as he was, but over time she eschewed drugs and began looking ahead to the future. When it came to Vale's future, it was like he had scales over his eyes. He couldn't see much beyond where he was now, way before the drugs came into the picture. Masonry didn't feel right to him. He wanted to be something more, something better, even though he knew someone like himself could never achieve all that they aspired to be. He wanted to be perfect, to not disappoint, to be loved. So he threw himself into training like all the other kids in Two, got accepted to the Divergent Academy, and managed to disappear at the place where he was meant to find himself.

In moments of lucidity, Vale would make art, like he did when he was younger. He'd fold little bits of paper into shapes, or even draw. He wasn't the most skilled person in Panem, but he tried. Sometimes he'd scribble on the wall behind his bed at the academy and cover it up in the hopes that it wouldn't be seen - just another thing that he was keeping hidden. It was so cruelly ironic that he hated when people were dishonest with him, but he was so secretive himself. He was both enamored and disgusted with illusions. It was part of his fucked-up charm.

Drugs were fun. There was no doubt about that. He did drugs to have fun and cut loose. And yet, there was always the underlying element of sadness that he was trying to conceal when he got high. He was a stumbling mess with the drugs and a volatile, uncertain mess without them. Vale knew who he was, and he knew it had to be hidden.

Why be open, why try at all, if he was bound to fail anyway?