Chapter 1: Act I
A/N: Just so you know - this story is unbeta'd, so I apologize for any mistakes. This is also my first attempt at fanfiction of the Neal Caffrey/Peter Burke variety, so there's that… And with that, I do believe the curtains are rising, and the story is begging to begin!
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Neal didn't like guns, and he was fairly certain the feeling was mutual. However, life was a cruel muse, and there were… occasions, per say, when he'd have to swallow his fear, pick up the weapon, and defend himself. Then he could go back to his comfort zone; no guns, no problem. Except that there was one thing. One little flaw that always crept into the dark recesses of the con's skull, shifting him, begging him, pleading and insistent.
It's so easy! Just pick it up, and shoot! You barely have to aim!
Just like before, right? The good old times, remember?
And you're so skilled with a gun, you always have been, haven't you?
Afterwards, Neal would sit in his loft, not trusting himself enough to drink, wrestling with a golden cage in which he kept that memory. He won every time, of course, and locked The Memory away until the next time a gun was placed in his slender fingers.
But, for every victory, there was yet another crack. Another chip in the façade that was Neal Caffrey. But no one noticed. No one ever noticed. And Neal was perfectly okay with that. He always had been. Until the day a certain FBI agent took a magnifying glass to the Great Wall of Caffrey.
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"Seriously, Peter, what are you getting at?" Neal asked again, exasperated.
"I'm not getting at anything, Neal! I just want to know what you were doing in the ICU of a hospital when you were fifteen!" Peter said, raising his voice. Neal flinched. He remembered that ICU. The antiseptic smell, like someone had flooded the place with it. The constant chatter of nurses and doctors, and the uproar of the machines, informing the world of a younger Neal Caffrey's heartbeat, that yes, he was still alive somehow! "And I already told you that I fell out of a tree. Boom, end of story, the end, no more. Capice?"
Peter squinted his eyes in that way he always does whenever he's suspicious of something. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen, Caffrey. I'm going to learn the truth, and if it turns out that you actually didn't fall out of a tree, if one detail is out of place, I will come back and personally send you right back to that ICU." Then he turned and soldiered out the door, leaving Neal alone with his Flaw. The silence resounded in his loft, reverberating in his skull, making the Flaw that much louder.
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END OF ACT I
A/N: Sorry it was so short! I promise there will be more within the week! Anyway, questions abound! What is the Flaw? Why is Peter so intent on knowing why Neal was in the ICU? Why would Neal be in a tree, anyway? Why does this author ask so many questions? All these and more, answered in the next act! Reviews are better than Redbull!