AN: Thanks to everyone for your support! It means so much! Hope you enjoy this little one-shot.

The Side of David

Debility shakes his legs as he steps out into the sunlight for the first time in three weeks. He's frightened of the world now, because he knows just how much can change when you're hidden away from it all. The heat of the sun slams against his skin once he's out of the building and he involuntarily jerks because his mind is used to flinching at any form of contact. He closes his eyes to let his irises adjust, but when he opens them they're like a newborn child's. He wills himself to keep them open because he's prayed about this day for three weeks. He knows that sometimes you don't get exactly what you want when you're down on your knees, but you'll get everything you need if you're smart about it, but he wonders if he's still the man that can work with anything.

He's a lamb being led away from the slaughter now. Weak at the knees, unsure of the world, but now he's been given time to gain strength, to learn the things he doesn't know. The thing is, he's seen the slaughter. He knows about the darkest places, and it makes it hard to look at the lighted ones of the world and not the shadows. But there's so much sun against his skin that for a moment the darkness of the past three weeks escapes his mind for a trip down in his heart to be brought up again later.

He's finally able to see. The sights of the trees he could hear rustling in the night, the crunch of the ground underneath footfalls that quickened his already frightened heart and the gravel of the driveway that told him whether the coast was clear or not is surrounding him in a sympathetic gesture, begging him not to hold a man's choices against them and their beauty. But he's a city boy at heart, and regardless of the fact that's he's been held captive in a basement underneath the woods for twenty-one days, he still wants people to brush against his shoulders when the wearing down soles of his Italian leather shoes travel against concrete laid between buildings that remind him just how small he really is.

Red and blue lights flash against his skin illuminating the blood and bruises he carries as he walks towards the line of F.B.I. vehicles, SWAT vans and ambulances. He knows he's not being led to them in handcuffs, but he feels his body shiver because he's still afraid. The man that the hand around his bicep belongs to suddenly stops walking and yells, "Agent Burke!" He flinches at the pull it causes on his arm and the pain in his ear, because he doesn't quite catch what was said. Suddenly the man is squatting to be eye level with his downcast ones and pointing in a direction Neal does his best to follow.

For a few seconds there's several black silhouettes running towards him, and Neal tries to take a step backwards, but the man beside him thinks he's stumbling and places a hand on his back. Neal blinks several times before the sight of Peter and James running towards him is clear. He breaks away from the man's grasp, but knows it's just because the man let him go rather than his feeble attempt to pull away.

He puts one trembling leg forward, testing the ground on his own and when he realizes he's still standing he takes another, then one more before he's standing in front of Peter and his father.

Time seems to stand still, as does everyone. Neal keeps his eyes on Peter who just stares right back, but his mind wanders to James who looks him up and down. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that it's a father's right to study his son, to judge him, but Peter is standing in front of him as if reaching out to touch him would make him disappear again and the fact that he just stands there, eyes on Neal's, tells the younger man that the agent can't lose him again.

Neal knows he'll have to be the first one to move, but for the life of him he can't do it. He knows Peter is real and that's the whole damn problem. People like Peter don't exist in his world. His world is filled with people too powerful, consciouses too bare and hearts too fearful. His world is made up of monsters and giants and when he finally lets his eyes travel to his father, he understands he's finally found the biggest one of all. He's finally found Goliath.

But he is no David. He knows he isn't. Every wall he's ever built proves that he's not and the walls might as well be built out of hay because they are no match for the man who has encouraged the making of them.

He takes his eyes off Goliath because that's what every coward would do. He's back to staring at Peter who has yet to move and starts to wonder if the man's unspoken fear has some merit to it, because if it does his next move will leave him in Goliath's clutches. He's a risk taker though, always has been, but he knows it doesn't make him brave. It just makes him a coward with a foolish sense of hope and that's why he moves first.

He takes a tiny step forward and says, "Peter."

It's the first thing he has said in days and his voice is the damning evidence of it. Although it's harsh against his own ears, it makes the agent move for the first time and suddenly there's arms around him. He's back to standing still in Peter's embrace and knows it's because this shouldn't be real. But Peter's saying, "I told you I would find you," and it's anything but gloating. Neal understands it's another promise to never let the monsters and giants fully take him away.

Over Peter's shoulder, Neal can see the hurt, jealous look in his father's eyes and it stings like a claw being torn into his flesh, but the pain gives him the strength he needs to finally grasp the back of Peter's jacket and bury his face in the agent's shoulder. He turns his head from side to side because he just can't believe this is real. But Peter's hand comes up to keep it still, because he wants him to know if there are such things as monsters and giants, there's such things as heroes, too. And suddenly Neal realizes the only reason he's never found Goliath before now was because he had never found David.

Neal feels his legs shake a little bit more, because the world he's carrying is too heavy for such feeble limbs. But Peter's holding him a little bit tighter, telling him, "Easy. Come on, lets sit down," and guiding him somewhere Neal will with out a doubt follow.

He's sitting down on the back of an ambulance now, between Peter and James. The agent's arm is still around him and Neal's shoulder is in the crook of it. Then his father's hand is on his head and Neal can't help but lean into it, but when Peter's grip loosens slightly to allow Neal to go where he wants, Neal suddenly plants himself back against Peter's side.

At first, Neal believes it to be because he's too much of a coward to face Goliath on his own, but then realizes that if it's not his side against Peter's, it's a knife against it instead and Neal's too smart, his heart too golden, his loyalty too deep, to put a knife in Peter's side, in David's side.

There he is, sitting between David and Goliath and he can't help but feel like he's a little bit of both. He knows that should scare him, because he's wavering on a dangerous line between being a man he's been afraid of becoming and being a man he doesn't know if he can be. But Peter's arm tightens back around his shoulders and his father's hand leaves his head and he stands up, putting it through his own gray hair and sighing.

"I'm going to kill the son of bitch."

Neal buries himself farther into Peter's side, because Goliath is starting to show his strength and he knows he doesn't have enough. The agent once again lets Neal go where he wants and says, "James," in a voice Neal's all too familiar with and he knows his father can hear the 'calm down or leave' in his name, because Neal can hear it too. There's a few moments before James chooses the one Neal knows his father to be more comfortable with, the one Goliath will always choose.

Neal's body shivers with each step his father takes like it did when he was a little boy afraid of the roar of thunder, but instead of wishing he had someone to take him away from the storm, Peter's pulling him closer and saying something that ends with, "home" and with a smile he actually feels, Neal watches as Goliath walks away, leaving him on the side of David in more ways than one.

AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!