Thank you for the reviews! Glad that people are actually reading and enjoying this. I didn't expect anybody to actually, haha. It's currently 4:45am as I am uploading this, I pulled an all nighter just so I could reward all you lovely people with another chapter quickly! So keep reviewing guys, because it's basically fuel to getting this uploaded quicker.
Chapter 2 – Failure by Design
~I wish that I was too dead to care, if indeed I cared at all. I never had a voice to protest, so you just fed me shit to digest. I wish I had a reason; my flaws are open season, for this I gave up trying. You don't need to bother, I don't need to be, I'll keep slipping farther, but once I hold on... I won't let go until it bleeds~
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut your arm." Mr Stonem said, he honestly was sorry for injuring the young con man, especially since he didn't look to be feeling too well when he was in the middle of the fight to start with.
However all Neal could do was glance down at his now injured arm, this is what had brought him out of his subconscious, this is what had brought him out of his horrid thoughts and hallucinations. This is what caused everything to stop.
"No it's fine; it's nothing but a slight scratch." Neal said whilst shrugging one shoulder, still confused as to why his body had reacted the way that it had to the sudden onslaught of physical pain.
"Well it looks like we have a winner of today's match. Congratulations Mr Stonem, I'll set up a meeting with you in the near future to discuss the terms of this purchase you have secured. I'm sorry Mr Halden, but you did not manage to qualify for this investment opportunity at this point in time, oh and also Jason, Mr Pierson would like to have a word with you once you get back to the office." Mr Cheng didn't seem to want to stay in the run down sporting facility any longer than he had to as he ushered the participants down the hallway whilst saying his goodbyes to them, before heading towards his own vehicle.
"So what happens now?" Jason asked once out of earshot of the other three men.
"I honestly don't have the slightest clue." Neal sighed, subconsciously running a hand through his hair. He had no idea where they were going to go from here, he had blown their one opportunity that they had to get exclusive access to what happened during an investment buy in, and Neal was sure that Peter was not going to be happy with the fact that they had missed out on that opportunity.
Peter's going to be so disappointed in me, I really let him and the others down. The thought flashed through his mind, he really was dreading facing Peter after his pathetic attempt at securing them this opportunity. Neal didn't do well with failure, especially when it was in relation to the bureau and reflected badly on Peter.
"Well I have a meeting with Mr Pierson apparently, so I'll go to that and hopefully it's nothing too bad that he wants to talk to me about, and then afterwards I'll drop by again and go from there. Do you have a way back? Because I should really get going now he doesn't like to be kept waiting for long..." Jason mumbled whilst looking at the ground, it was obvious from his demeanour that he was not at all looking forward to his meeting with Cameron Pierson, much the same as Neal wasn't looking forward to meeting back up with Peter, Jones and Diana. They had both respectively let their bosses down just then in that sporting facility.
"Yeah I've got a lift roughly a block away, good luck with your meeting, I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about." Neal pattered the man on the forearm and proceeded to walk off towards where he knew the rest of the team were parked waiting for his return in the van.
It was only about a five minute walk to where the van was parked but Neal was grateful for the silence, and to be by himself for a few minutes, even if it was only for a short amount of time. He was still extremely confused as to what had just taken place back in the recreational centre, from the unconventional fencing match – to his losing of the fencing match, and the reasons as to why he had lost the match. He was fairly certain that he could have won that match hands down if it wasn't for the absurd images that were assaulting his vision every few seconds. What really concerned Neal was that there was absolutely no solid explanation as to why he was suddenly hallucinating things that weren't there and especially why they were such horrid hallucinations.
He just hoped that he could chalk the bizarre images up to his lack of sleep, and it was just that his brain wasn't coping with the small amount of sleep he was trying to function on and not that his current mental state was slowly deteriorating on him. He desperately hoped that he could get a solid amount of sleep tonight and that tomorrow when he woke up the images were erased out of his mind and he could get back on track.
Before he knew it he had approached the van where the rest of his team were waiting, taking a deep breath he braced himself for the onslaught he believed he was about to receive from Peter and opened the van's door to reveal Peter inches away from his face, looking slightly on edge.
"Neal! Are you alright, we heard that you got injured?" was the first thing that Peter Burke said to the younger man as he stepped inside of the van. Peter didn't however notice the colour that drained from Neal's face as his demeanour changed as a reaction to such an innocent question.
"Uh yeah, oh it's nothing, just a slight scratch. Nothing to worry about." Neal said, flashing his best con-man smile that he could muster. This was the last topic that he wanted to discuss right now, as he still didn't understand things concerning the matter himself.
"Let me take a look." Peter said moving to grab at Neal's arm to take a better look at the damage that was inflicted, but Neal had jerked back before Peter could reach a hold of him.
"It's fine Peter!" Neal's tone came out more hostile than he had intended it to, and he immediately regretted it as he watched Peter's reaction, and even Jones' and Diana's reaction to his sudden hostility towards them. "It's just a slight scratch; we have more pressing issues at hand then this." He quickly added, hoping that they wouldn't read too much into his current attitude towards the topic.
"Caffrey's got a point, what are we going to do now about Pierson?" Diana asked, sensing Neal's aversion to the previous discussion and deciding it would be best for everyone to just drop it, unknowing to the real reason behind Neal's distaste for the conversation, she chalked his unusual reactions up to the fact that he was probably brooding over the fact that he had lost the fencing competition, and then even managed to get himself injured in the process. She was sure that Neal Caffrey didn't lose often, and it wasn't something that Neal Caffrey would be proud of either, and if there was one thing that Neal didn't like discussing, it was his mistakes – the few ones that there were, but still his mistakes were a conversation he didn't like to partake in.
"I'm not entirely sure, right now we'll just have to wait until Jason Brenner has had his meeting with Pierson and see where things can move on from there." Peter said, also deciding to drop the topic that Neal obviously wanted no part in. "We'll head back to the office and go over the documents that we received and see if we can find a way to somehow get the upper hand in the situation."
Once back at the federal plaza the rest of the team had headed straight to the conference room to mull over the documents and see if there was anything that they had missed the first time reading through them. Neal however had quickly excused himself and headed straight towards the men's restrooms.
Once inside his eyes quickly scanned the area and he was relieved to find that nobody else was in there. Letting out an exhausted sigh he glanced at his reflection in the mirror, his face had gotten significantly paler since this morning which was probably due to the physical exertion he had just put on his body, the fact that he had little to no sleep the night before did not help with his re-cooperation and the fact that he wasn't eating much probably didn't help either. Running his hands through his hair he attempted to tame the curls that were now falling in every direction due to the fencing stunt, one he was as satisfied as he could get with his current appearance he glanced down just under his left shoulder blade.
His dress shirt was stained a deep maroon colour around the edges of where it had been sliced by the sabre, and the edges of the material were sticking to the now dried blood that was around the wound. Taking a deep breath he unbuttoned his shirt and removed the material from his body and placed it onto the counter top. Turning his body slightly so he could get a better glance at the cut in the mirror he noticed how small the injury really was, it wasn't deep and it didn't look to be anything more than an animal scratch. Neal however was still confused as to how such a small injury had such a large impact on his mental and physical state, however before he could continue his train of thought the door to the restroom had opened.
"Neal we really could use your help out-" Peter abruptly stopped mid sentence as he realized that Neal was standing there shirtless examining his injured arm. "Oh how's the arm going?" he asked stepping closer to the young con man, hoping that this time Neal would allow him to examine his injury for himself.
Neal sighed and tipped his head back in exasperation, "Peter I'm fine, it's a slight scratch, nothing but an over-sized paper cut. It doesn't even hurt. I'm more upset over the fact that one of my favourite shirts had to get ruined in the process. I don't even have a spare shirt here at the moment."
"If it's such an issue you can always wear one of the FBI windbreakers over your shirt, no one has to see that you got attacked by a fencing sword." Peter said, trying to hide the chuckle that was threatening to escape.
"You really trust me wearing one of your precious FBI windbreakers? Wow Peter, I'm actually honoured." Neal laughed, slipping on his torn shirt to shield the injury from Peter's prying eyes. "That'd actually be great though. I really don't want to walk around all day looking like a wild animal attacked me."
"As long as you don't impersonate an agent whilst wearing it then it is fine by me, now come on I'll go find you one and then we'll need your help reviewing these files." Peter said over his shoulder as he was already walking out of the restroom to collect a windbreaker for Neal to wear over his destroyed shirt.
Following Peter out of the restrooms Neal headed towards the conference room where he could see Diana and Jones reading through the files that they had on Cameron Pierson and Nitrac Insurance. This was one case that Neal couldn't wait for to hurry up and end, to start with it had sounded like it would be something he would look forward to, and he had to admit it still did interest him with Cameron Pierson being involved but so far nothing had been going according to plan regarding the whole ordeal, and Neal hated when the cases they worked on didn't go as planned – especially when it was due to one of his own faults.
Walking into the conference room he slid into the chair at the end of the table and grabbed one of the files that were resting on the table in front of him. Jones and Diana hadn't even looked up at him as he had entered the room, as they were that engrossed in reading the files that they had in front of them.
It was only a matter of minutes before Peter walked back into the conference room, windbreaker in tow. "Here, now remember Neal no impersonating a federal officer." Peter laughed whilst handing the jacket over to the younger man who eagerly slipped it over his shoulders.
"You couldn't have found a smaller size, what is this a size large?" Neal said whilst adjusting the windbreaker, it hanged loosely off of his shoulders and gave off the impression of a small child playing dress up in his father's work uniform – not that of one of the most cunning con-men in New York.
"Pretty certain Caffrey that it's the smallest they make, you're just ridiculously slim." Diana said, leaning back in her chair and placing her folder down on the table to take a look at Neal wearing the jacket. "It actually makes you look smaller than you already are, if that is even possible. Do you even consume any food?" Diana laughed taking in Neal's appearance.
"I have a high metabolism." Neal said grumpily, sitting back down and grabbing a hold of one of the files and scanning through it, signalling to them that this was a conversation he did not wish to continue.
Peter however didn't fail to notice that Diana was right when she mentioned that Neal was ridiculously slim, he had always had a small frame but as of lately Peter couldn't help but notice that it looked like the younger man was losing weight at what seemed to be a drastically fast pace. The jacket that he had given Neal had been the smallest size they had, as Diana had mentioned, but it practically hung off of Neal's shoulders and thus really highlighted just how much weight it seemed the young man had lost over the past few weeks. Peter knew that the last thing Neal would want to do would be to talk about the topic, that however didn't mean that Peter was going to just drop the subject and forget he had noticed how thin Neal was getting. He wouldn't mention it today, or even tomorrow, but he promised himself that he would keep an eye on Neal and if it looked like he lost anymore weight that he couldn't afford to lose, Peter would confront him about it.
Getting back to the task on hand Peter sat down across from Neal at the table and grabbed one of the files that detailed the recent incomes of Nitrac employees in the past six months and began scanning through the documents with the rest of his team. It had only been roughly just over an hour before they all got to suddenly stop reading through the documents in front of them that were now becoming a bunch of blurry words to Neal as Jason Brenner had entered the FBI plaza – and he was not looking happy.
"Agent Burke! I need a word with you." Jason yelled, marching up the steps two at a time and heading towards the conference room. The man's face was laced with tension, and Neal swore that he could see the vein in the man's temple pulsating from where he sat across the room.
"Jason, certainly, come this way with me into my office." Peter ushered the distraught man into his office away from the rest of his team and from the rest of the floor's agents. "What seems to be the problem Jason?"
"I got fired because of this!" Jason all but screamed at the older agent.
"I'm sorry, what? You got fired? Why?" Peter asked, generously confused as to what happened and what possessed Cameron Pierson to fire one of his employees so suddenly, was he onto their investigation?
"Apparently I took too long finding people to buy in and so my investment was cancelled, and so was my employment status and it's all because your man lost that god damn fencing tournament!" Jason yelled, pointing his finger in the general direction of the conference room where Neal was located.
As if on cue, Neal walked right into Peter's office, having little to no regard to the meeting that Peter was currently holding in there. "Peter! I found-" he began before getting abruptly cut off.
"You! You got me fired!"Jason screamed at the young con man, turning around to face Neal who was standing in the middle of the doorway startled at Jason's sudden outburst towards him.
"Wait what, I got you fired? How does that work out?" Neal asked raising an eyebrow at the man who seemed to be just on the verge of having a breakdown. "I didn't do anything?"
"That's the point! You didn't do anything! You never won that god damn fencing tournament, and Pierson got angry at me for taking so long to get someone to buy in and then I got fired because I failed to prove my potential to him after taking too long and then having you go in there and make me look like a god damn fool!" Jason yelled throwing his arms up in exasperation, that breakdown was not as far off as it previously was.
Nice going there Neal, you cost the poor man his job because of your pathetic excuse of fencing. What even was that back there, I'm sure that a three year old child could have beaten you easily! You really are exceptional at screwing people's lives up and ruining everything you come into contact with. You should really get a medal for your ability at fucking things up.
"Jason I didn't mean to get you fired, I'm sure we can work out a way for you to get your job back and for our investigation to continue into Nitrac Insurance." Neal said pushing the unwanted intrusive thoughts into the far back corners of his mind, now was not the time or the place for him to dwell on his own self loathing problems.
"NO! You don't understand, I don't want you to keep investigating, I don't care anymore! You have already ruined my job and my life, I don't care what you do now but I want no part in it anymore!" Jason yelled running his hands through his hair. "I never should have brought this to you in the first place!"
"Jason we can-" Neal was abruptly cut off mid sentence.
"Neal get out." Peter said, voice void of all emotion and leaving no room for argument.
"What? Peter I-" confusion was evidently laced throughout Neal's voice.
"Neal, now. Get out." Once again Peter's voice remained void of any hint of emotion, and his face was expressionless and completely unreadable to the young con-man.
Surprised at Peter's sudden attitude towards him, he followed out Peter's request and walked out of the agent's office leaving the two men in there to continue their heated discussion without his presence. Not wanting to go back into the conference room and work on a case that he was so obviously not wanted on Neal decided that he would head home early for the day instead, he ignored the nagging voice in the back of his mind telling him that wouldn't go across well with Peter who already seemed to be annoyed at him. Peter could be annoyed with him all he wanted, Neal knew when his presence wasn't wanted and he didn't plan on sticking around the office to be yelled at by Peter for something obscure like breathing too much oxygen.
Walking down the stairs from Peter's office he headed towards the elevators ignoring the fact that some of the agent's at their desks were glancing at him, he wasn't sure if it was due to the outburst they probably just saw happen in Peter's office or the fact that he was still dressed as one of them; wearing their FBI windbreaker. Whatever it was he honestly didn't care, he just wanted to get out of the damned building and go home.
Once inside the elevator he pressed the button for the ground floor, let out a heavy sigh and leaned back against the elevator's wall. Neal was extremely confused as to what had just happened in there.
Is he honestly mad at me for losing that stupid fencing competition? Does he honestly blame me as well for Jason losing his job? There's no way I could have known that losing the competition would affect Jason badly as well as make us lose a solid opportunity to gain access into Pierson's exclusive club. Fuck. Peter is blaming this on me, the reason for failing this case is going to be handed to me on a damn silver platter with a go directly to jail card and do not collect your 200,000. This isn't my damn fault. I didn't purposely fuck this up. God dammit.
Closing his eyes tightly Neal blocked out his surroundings and rested his head against the elevator wall until he reached the ground floor and practically ran out of the elevator. All he wanted was to get home and go to sleep and hopefully everything would be back to normal – no more nightmares, no more hallucinations, no more intrusive thoughts and no more screwing up important aspects of the cases he was working on.
Hailing down a cab he gave the driver the address to June's house and before he knew it the cab was pulling up out the front of the building that he now called his home, he handed the driver the amount that the fee was and walked into his home.
Home. Was this really his home? A home was somewhere you felt safe, secure and loved. Somewhere that was a refuge to the harsh reality of the outside world, somewhere you could go when you just wanted to forget that anything outside of the four walls that surrounded you existed. Somewhere where nothing mattered except for the people that you shared that home with. But who were these people? Who could he rely on when he really needed someone the most?
Sure there was June, she and him had gotten close since he had moved in, but he didn't want to have to put any more added pressure on her than he already did just by being a convicted felon living in her guest room. There was always Mozzie, he was always there for him when got in trouble, when he needed a lawyer, when he needed advice on what to do next, when he needed help planning, but would Mozzie be there for him when he got in trouble with something more complex than the law, than some criminal they were chasing after, would Mozzie be there when his own walls he built around himself caved in on him and made him a prisoner of his own mind. Would Mozzie be there to help him then, help him free himself from the walls that confined him inside of his own subconscious?
What about Peter, he used to think that Peter would be there for him no matter what happened and what he did. But as of lately, he had noticed Peter getting more and more distant towards him, and even though that's what he wanted so as to not unintentionally cause the older man harm – it hurt. It really fucking hurt. Things were going downhill fast and Neal didn't want to keep lying to himself, things weren't okay in the world of Neal Caffrey – but when you had nobody to turn to, nobody to help you, the appearance that you created where everything was going fine was the only security you had, the only hope you had of surviving against everything that was thrown at you.
Walking inside he noticed that the maids were nowhere to be seen and that they must have already finished their duties and clocked off for the day early. June was still away visiting her relatives and wouldn't be back until the end of the week – the house was quite and Neal could finally have some much needed solitude.
Once upstairs inside of his room he took off the FBI windbreaker and threw it across the backs of one of the chairs at his kitchen table, the bold yellow letters stared back at him. What was he doing working with the FBI, could he really trust Peter, could an FBI agent actually become friends with a convicted felon that he was responsible for sending to prison in the first place or was Neal just kidding himself to think that Peter actually liked him and wasn't just putting up with him. Letting out a sigh he unbuttoned his ruined dress shirt and tossed it on the couch, kicked off his shoes and walked over to his bed and plopped his body down on it not even bothering to change out of his dress slacks he closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep.
The intrusive thoughts that had been creeping up all day were starting to sneak back up on him again and he didn't really want to have to deal with sitting by himself wallowing in his own self pity. The clock on the wall revealed that it was just after 2pm, right now would be a perfect time for him to try and catch up on the sleep that he so desperately needed to be able to continue functioning at a normal level and not arouse any suspicions with his co-workers, especially from Peter.
Peter.
You know that he only puts up with you because you are helping his success rate at catching criminals. You're fooling yourself if you think that he thinks of you as anything more than a pathetic excuse of a criminal who got caught – twice. You're nothing to him, you're nothing to nobody. The only thing you are good at is turning on the people who are just like you, ruining their lives just like yours was ruined. This job works out well for you, you get to screw people's lives up and send them to jail – because you know how fun that was. All you're ever good for is ruining people's lives. You ruined Kate's, you ruined Ellen's, you ruined Peter's and now you ruined a guy's life that you just met. It only took you what, 5 hours to fuck that man's life up? Good work Neal.
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut he rolled over and willed for everything in his mind to shut up, all he wanted was silence and to be able to get one night of peaceful sleep, but that seemed to be all too much to ask for as the thoughts that were bugging him all day were threatening to overflow inside of his mind.
I wonder how long it will take before Peter realizes that you're too much of a liability, soon you'll start causing law suits with all the lives that you're going to keep fucking up. Every wrong move that you make Neal; you're one step closer to going back to prison. I'm sure you'll like that; I mean it was so much fun in there with –
"Shut up!" Neal yelled to the empty apartment, rolling onto his side he attempted to bury his face into his pillow but gasped at the sudden sting of pain he felt shoot up his left arm.
The bed sheet had rubbed against the scrape on his forearm and caused a slight prickling sensation of pain to tingle down his left arm at the unwanted contact. It wasn't just the pain that had caused him to gasp however; it was the quietness that was accompanied with the pain he felt. When the pain was shooting down his arm the thoughts that were racing through his mind came to a halt, they just stopped abruptly as his mind focused on the pain – and the pain alone. It didn't last long though as the pain quickly subsided and the unwanted feelings, emotions and intrusive thoughts all came crashing back down, and assaulted his mind once again.
An idea quickly formed in the young con man's mind and before he knew what he was doing he grasped his palm tightly around his forearm where the fencing wound was located and squeezed his hand against the wound. The pressure on the wound caused a slightly higher level of pain to be released then before and just like magic the thoughts in his mind were gone, and all that was left was quietness for a few split seconds as his mind focused on the pain, until once again, the pain had subsided seconds later and the uncomfortable feelings and emotions he so desperately wanted to get rid of crept their way back up inside of him, this time at a much stronger force then previously– it seemed that they didn't like being repetitively squashed down and ignored.
Neal needed the thoughts to be gone for longer than a few seconds; he needed the pain to not subside as quickly so that he would have enough time to fall asleep without the verbal assault going on inside of his subconscious. Unsure of what had possessed him, Neal jumped out of his bed and headed straight towards his kitchen, his eyes locked onto the object that he was seeking out and with an unsure, shaky hand he reached out and grasped a hold of the handle of his kitchen knife in his right hand.
Taking a deep breath, Neal couldn't believe what it was that he was about to do, but it was as if something else had taken over his body, some outside force had taken over control, and all he could do was stand there, fixed to the spot and watch as his own actions were completed in front of him. He needed this silence in his mind and he needed it now, he needed no emotions at all threatening to overspill and flood his senses. He needed to get to sleep desperately and this was the only option that he had to make that a possibility.
That is why Neal Caffrey found himself running the blade of the knife along his skin just underneath his shoulder, next to the fencing injury he had obtained earlier; he quickly and swiftly moved the blade once, then twice, then three times until there were three neat red lines underneath his previous cut. He stared down at the four lines on his arm, unsure of what he had just done to himself and what it was that caused him to take such drastic actions, however whatever confusion he felt towards the situation at hand was immediately squashed and gone as the pain in his arm took over.
The pain wasn't too intense, it was just an annoying throbbing in his arm, but that was all that it was, just pain – physical pain only. All that his mind was focusing on and thinking about was the physical pain that was radiating in his arm. There was no shouting, no intrusive thoughts, no feelings of guilt, no self loathing, nothing except for the pulsating pain in his left arm and the warmth he felt from the blood trickling down his arm.
Unclenching his right first he dropped the knife onto the kitchen counter and finally for the first time in what seemed to have been an extremely long time, Neal felt a small smile creep across his face as for once, every single thing was silenced in the mind of Neal Caffrey.
It was pure bliss.
Hope you enjoyed. Poor Neal :/ don't forget to review and tell me what you think/like/dislike :)