Here's a short one-shot, mostly based on the look Diana gave Neal after he described Robin Hoodie in Scott Free. Anyone else catch it? Anyone? Anywho, I thought it was worthy of a proper, 379 word verbalized muse. Let me know what you think!
Diana wasn't used to seeing Caffrey like this. Normally when she looked at him, she saw a benched conman, sidelined and out of options. She saw someone who took advantage of the goodness in some people, and exploited the greed of others.
When she looked at him, she wasn't accustomed to seeing barely veiled vulnerability.
Caffrey's masks were airtight, intricate works of art like the things he plagiarized and stole. Yet somehow, this case rattled him enough to shake loose the carefully fitted façade.
She watched him as he described the young thief, the unintentionally coined Robin Hoodie. His tailored description displayed unwanted openness, revealing that not only did others find this new conman similar to Caffrey, but he did too. He denied it, hoping to retain his identity, refusing others the privilege of replacing the genius that he had brought to the streets in his time—and perhaps did even now, though there was a dismaying lack of evidence.
There was a marked difference in the way he described the psyche of this boy. Never before had he delved into a con's mind; in fact, it was blatantly obvious he shied away from such an experience.
He related to Robin Hoodie, no matter how much he repudiated the suggestion.
She suddenly realized how little she actually knew about Caffrey. She had eaten dinner with him and Sara, and yet his careless charm had revealed very little personal information. He willingly shared information about the heists he had pulled and the jobs he'd heard of on the street, but she knew absolutely nothing of his life before the conning began. It made her feel a little ashamed, though she wouldn't admit it to anyone, that someone she cautiously considered her friend was someone she knew practically nothing about.
She watched him with new eyes as he finished his monologue, finally conceding plausibility of a similarity by suggesting that Scott might grow bolder—like he did.
He looked back at her, and she knew he realized how much of himself he had exposed.
She decided right then that she wasn't going to look at Neal as a "reformed" con artist anymore.
What was going to be tricky was determining how she should look at him.
She didn't know who he really was.