Sorry this took longer than expected to post, with Christmas being in two days I've been slightly busy, but I wanted to post this chapter before Christmas :) Thanks to all the people who have reviewed, favourited and followed this! It honestly means so much, to see people actually enjoying my writing is the best gift ever. So please, please keep that up and tell me what you like/dislike about the story. Happy holidays!
Chapter 3 – Running to Stand Still.
~Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal~
Unclenching his right fist 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 and utter bliss.
Neal stood there in the middle of his kitchen, dumbfounded as to what had just played out before his eyes. He wasn't sure what he was more confused about – why he had decided to inflict pain upon himself, or why the infliction of pain was making everything in his mind dull down for once. Neal decided that he couldn't really care less as to what the reasoning behind his actions were at the moment, and instead he just stood there, blood trickling down his arm, and let the relief wash over him.
If this had made everything stop, if this simple method made all of the negative emotions, all the guilt that he felt, all the accusations and blame that were yelled at him inside his mind – everything – just go away for such a small, simple price – then he honestly didn't care less as to the how's and why's. After a few minutes of standing there relishing in the relief the pain was giving him Neal had came to the decision that this was a price that he was willing to pay, if this is what he had to do to be able to function both physically and mentally again then this is what he would do – to get back to being the old Neal Caffrey.
The Neal Caffrey who got more than a maximum of two to three hours of sleep at night, the one who wasn't plagued with nightmares every time that he closed his eyes and assaulted with vivid and horrid hallucinations whenever he opened them, the one who hadn't taken up self loathing as a hobby and the one who didn't screw up Peter's undercover missions.
Taking in a deep breath Neal glanced up at the clock on his wall and noted that it was just around 2:30pm, he hadn't heard from Peter since he had left the office and he hoped that meant the agent didn't care too much that he had just got up and left the building without his permission. It's not like he was off doing god knows what, he was sure that as soon as Peter noticed he wasn't still in the building he would have immediately pulled his GPS data up and realized that he was at home. He was fairly certain however that the next time he saw Peter he was going to be receiving one hell of a lecture about the importance of working until he was told otherwise and that he could not just freely leave the building and head home whenever he felt the need to.
Neal decided that this was probably a good time to seize this opportunity of silence and try and get the much needed sleep he had failed to receive moments ago now that he could lay down and close his eyes without being assaulted by the voices inside of his head screaming at him. Sighing at how slightly crazy that sounded, he looked down at his arm to inspect the damage he had caused – the cuts weren't exactly deep, but then again they weren't exactly shallow either. The first one that he had inflicted was the shallowest; the hesitation in the injury was obvious as he first took the knife to his skin. The last one however was significantly less hesitant and contained more hint of a purpose – the need to cause a substantial amount of pain. The wound was still slightly bleeding also whereas the other two had stopped awhile ago.
Grabbing the dish towel from the sink in front of him he pressed the cloth against the wound and hissed slightly at the contact and breathed out through his mouth as a small amount of pain shot through his arm from the contact of the cotton against the raw skin. It only took a few more seconds of applying the pressure before the bleeding had decided to stop like the other two.
Suddenly feeling very tired he decided that he would clean everything up when he woke up; hopefully by then he would be feeling more refreshed and back to his old self. Neal placed the dish towel onto the sink, not even bothering to rinse the evidence of the events that just took place from it and headed straight towards his bed, still clothed in just his dress slacks he laid down on his bed and was pleased to note that he fell almost immediately into a deep, much needed slumber.
Neal's eyes slowly flickered open as he was awoken by the persistent banging that was coming from his front door, looking up at the clock he noticed that it was only just a little after 5pm – he had gotten roughly only two to three hours sleep which was nowhere near helpful at all. He groaned at the realization that he was still running on little to no sleep and immediately shot daggers at the door as the knocking continued and was this time combined with the yelling of his name through the door.
"Neal! Open the damn door!" The slightly irritated voice of one Agent Peter Burke echoed throughout the silence of his small room.
Oh just great, I'm so not in the mood to receive the disobedient Neal lecture right now.
"Yeah, hold on a minute." Neal mumbled, slowly getting out of the bed he made his way over to the door, slightly irritated also at the fact that Peter had awoken him from the only opportunity he had in the past few days of getting a decent amount of sleep. Neal half opened the door to reveal Peter's stern looking face before realization washed over him and he quickly slammed the door shut. Neal could only just imagine the look that Peter was shooting at him through the now closed door.
"Neal? What the hell, open the door!" Peter all but shouted at the young con man.
But Neal didn't open the door, because right now he desperately needed to find a shirt or one hell of an awkward conversation that he assumed neither Peter nor he would wish to partake in would happen. He quickly dashed into his wardrobe and grabbed a grey sweatshirt and chucked it over his head, grimacing slightly as the material came into contact with the events of the past few hours, ignoring the pain he hurriedly made his way back to the door and opened it to find an even angrier looking Peter Burke.
"Neal what the hell was that?!" Peter shouted at the younger man, pushing past him and into the room.
"Oh, sorry I-I didn't have a shirt." Neal blurted out before even thinking about just how ridiculous that had sounded. Peter had seen him without a shirt many times, hell, he'd seen the younger man shirtless just a few hours ago back in the men's restroom. He really was losing his wits with all this lack of sleep.
Thankfully however Peter didn't comment on that, instead just shot Neal an incredulous look. "Why did you leave today? When I told you to get out – I meant out of my office, not out of the entire building."
"Oh, sorry I thought you meant the building." Again with his crappy excuse of a lie, he was sure Peter wouldn't buy that one either. He really, really needed to get sleep before he ended up blurting out every single one of his most kept secrets to the agent in his sleep deprived state.
"Why would I want you to leave the building?" Confusion was evident in the agent's voice.
"Oh I don't know Peter, I just misread what you said, why did you want me to leave your office?" Neal asked, hoping to change the topic away from himself and his poor lack of judgement.
"Because Neal, it's my office and I was having a private conversation, and your presence was obviously making that man more on edge and I didn't want to deal with him physically lashing out at you." Peter explained, as if he was talking to a two year old and it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh of course, but you know that it's not my fault he got fired right?" Neal tried to make the question sound as innocent as possible when really the answer meant more to him than he would care to admit.
"Yes Neal, I know that it wasn't your fault he got fired, you could never have predicted that reaction from Pierson at your loss in the fencing tournament." Peter said, walking further into Neal's apartment.
Neal sighed in relief at that and was just about to say something before Peter cut him off.
"Neal what's this? Is this blood?" Peter asked, nodding his head in the direction of the bloodied dish cloth that Neal had left sitting on his sink.
The colour in Neal's face immediately vanished as he realized what Peter was talking about, "Oh that, yeah my injury from the fencing earlier started bleeding again, uh it's nothing really." He said, adding his best con man smile he could muster for extra measure.
"Are you sure Neal? This is an awful lot of blood, how bad is the injury? Let me take a quick look at it." Peter said advancing towards Neal.
"No! It's fine Peter." Neal said backing up, a little too quickly for his liking and judging by the look on Peter's face – too quick for his liking also.
"Neal would you stop acting like a child and let me look at your arm." The irritation in Peter's voice obvious as he reached towards the young con man's arm.
"Did you get a medical degree in the last two minutes? No. Well then I don't need your opinion on my superficial cut that is fine!" Neal all but yelled, again immediately regretting the words that fell from his lips. "Peter, I'm sorry that was harsher than it intended to be. Look I'm fine; I don't need you examining me." Neal added, hoping to ease the sting off of his first statement.
"Hey I just want a quick look to see how serious it is, that's an awful lot of blood on that cloth, and for it to still be bleeding like that it may need some stitches. Neal just let me look at it." Peter stubbornly said, still holding his ground on the matter at hand.
"Well if it needs stitches that's my decision that I will make, Peter seriously I'm old enough to examine an injury and tell how serious or not it is. This is not serious, just drop it please." The desperation in Neal's voice was obvious, this topic was not something that he wished to continue for much longer.
"Fine, but if you end up needing stitches later on, I'll be sitting there telling you I told you so." Peter said adding a small grin at the end to show that he was half joking but still half serious. Peter decided to not press the issue any further at this point, he could tell it was uncomfortable for Neal and Neal was also an incredibly stubborn man, and this was something that he seemed to intend to be stubborn about.
"Oh I'm sure you will." Neal said, tilting his head to the side and slightly smiling in return.
Neal walked past Peter and into his kitchen area where the dreaded towel was; he picked up the offending item and manoeuvred his hand so that he managed to also grab the knife in the process that was resting nearby that thankfully Peter seemed to not have noticed. He noticed that the tip of the blade was stained with crimson, and that definitely would have made for one hell of an awkward conversation between the two.
He quickly placed them both in the sink with the towel on top of the knife covering it from Peter's line of sight – he debated about washing the items but decided it would be too risky if Peter caught a glance of the knife in the process, leaving the items there for now he headed out towards his balcony in the hopes that Peter would follow suit and leave the kitchen.
It had worked; it wasn't long before Peter was now standing alongside Neal on the balcony looking out at the spectacular views of New York City. It was just after 5pm so the sun was still illuminating over the city, but also in the process of dying down and letting the night sky fall over. The way the city looked back at them was absolutely breathtaking and this view was something Neal would never take for granted.
"Considering it's only 5pm and we still have a lot of work to do now that Mr Brenner isn't going to be cooperative with us anymore, I'm going to have to ask that you come back to the office." Peter said, being the first of the two to break the silence that fell between them.
Neal inwardly groaned at that, now was not the time that he wanted to be at work, mulling over countless files to try and fix a problem that he had caused. All that he wanted was to catch up on the sleep that he seemed to forever be unable to attain, the nap he just had before Peter awoken him did nothing at all to refresh him and instead just made him even more exhausted after getting just over two hours.
"Oh. Yeah of course, I mean it's only 5pm and we're normally always at work at this hour anyway. It's no big deal, just let me go get more properly dressed and I'll be ready in five minutes." Neal plastered his fake smile across his face, and tried to hide as much disappointment from his voice as possible. It was natural to be slightly disappointed at having to go into work and read over case files, but with the small amount of sleep Neal was functioning on it wouldn't surprise him if he tried to let his true emotion into his voice it would escalate further than intended and would end with him throwing a tantrum and sitting on the ground like a three year old, refusing to move. So it was best to just act as happy about the situation as he could and not reveal the slightest hint about how he was really feeling.
"Right, I'll just be out here waiting for you." Peter said glancing over his shoulder as he watched the younger man head towards his wardrobe. Peter wasn't a fool; he noticed how oddly Neal had been acting. It surprised him greatly for Neal to not complain even the slightest about having to go back into work when he could be in his apartment painting and drinking exquisite wines or doing one hundred and one other things – instead however he acted like it didn't even bother him slightly. Peter wasn't convinced in the smallest. There was something off about the young con man and Peter was determined to find out what it was.
Neal walked into his wardrobe, grabbed a new pair of slacks, dress shirt and tie and then headed into the bathroom where he slowly took the sweatshirt off, grimacing again as it brushed against the fresh wounds. The contact from the material had caused the last cut to start bleeding slightly again, sighing heavily he rummaged through the cabinet in front of him and grabbed a square shaped bandaid that was big enough to cover the entire area and placed it over the cuts. He didn't want to take any chances and have blood seeping through his shirt at work, he was certain that if that was to happen Peter would rip his shirt off right there just to have a look at the injury that he had claimed was fine so many times. Quickly dressing himself, he attempted to comb his hair into the closest to a satisfying style as he could get and then walked back out into his living room to find Peter still standing on the balcony – thankfully. He donned a pair of socks and shoes that were near his bed and then walked out onto the balcony signalling to Peter that he was ready to go.
It was now close to six when the two men arrived back at the federal plaza. In the conference room Neal could see that Jones, Diana and three other agents were in there combing through the files on Nitrac Insurance trying to find a way to get the upper hand in the situation that was quickly falling out from underneath their feet since Jason Brenner had jumped ship and refused to cooperate any further with the bureau.
"I'm going to get myself a coffee; I'll be up in a few minutes." Neal said excusing himself from Peter and heading over towards the coffee machines – the coffee here tasted terrible, but with the amount of sleep Neal was running on he didn't really have a choice, he needed caffeine desperately. Filling up the biggest mug that he could find with the hot liquid he took a long gulp of it, grimaced at the taste, and then walked up to the conference room to join the rest of the team in their search for leverage against Pierson.
He had just sat down and placed his now almost half empty cup of coffee on the table when Jones closed one of the files and shoved it onto the table in exasperation and sighed, "Boss there's absolutely nothing here that we can use or even build from. This guy covers his tracks too well, our best shot was Brenner and now he's gone we have nothing, this is pretty much going to be a cold case." Jones said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands together behind his head.
Ouch. Was all Neal could think at the mention of Jason Brenner.
"Jones I know we've been through this over and over again, but there has to be something that we-" Peter had started before being cut off by the younger con man.
"Wait! I have something, Peter I was coming in to show it to you when you were talking to Brenner, where's the list of people who are receiving money as an employee of Nitrac Insurance?" Neal asked, standing up from his seat and rummaging through the folders in front of him.
"Here, Neal we've been through this file, there's nothing." Diana said handing him the file in question.
Neal grabbed a highlighter from the table and highlighted the name Michael Holt, and then highlighted two more names further down under his, a Tomah Leich and Chitom Hale. "The first name, Michael Holt is probably the man closest to Pierson, he would have been the one to start the operation with him and he's getting the most income bonuses." Neal sounded like a boy on Christmas when he began explaining just what it was that he had found out.
"Neal how do you know this? He's getting the same amount of money as everybody else on this list, and who are the other two men and where do they fit into all of this?" Peter asked, slightly smiling to himself as he noticed the happiness in Neal's voice as he described to the team his discovery. It was good to see the younger man get some light back in his eyes since lately all they seemed was dull.
"They're Michael Holt." Neal said, sitting back in his chair, grinning. "The names are anagrams, they're fake – Pierson is sending the money as an employee to three accounts as to not attract suspicion, but really those are poor choices of names. I mean Chitom? Poor kid – anyway, all the accounts belong to Michael Holt, he's getting the biggest slice of the pie here, he has to be involved deeper in this somehow."
"Why would he choose such poor choice names if he didn't want to arise suspicions?" Diana asked, not really buying the whole anagram story that Neal was fixated on.
"Because it's his signature, like the way a person will sign a forgery. He wants them to be tied back to him, and only he can see the connection. Naming the accounts John Smith doesn't really give you that same rush of power as being a wealthy business man named Chitom." Neal laughed, still unable to wipe the grin off of his face. Maybe things were starting to look up again; he had just found them a pretty big lead they could use.
"I hope you're right on this Neal. If you are, we'll need you to get in contact with Holt pretty soon and see if you can manage to get anything out of him – see if he slips up and mentions something regarding his investments and Nitrac. We'll make the meeting purely coincidental, it's not like we can't just request a meeting with him to discuss this, for all we know he is just a casual employee there. You'll have to just run into him somewhere such as a bar or a club or wherever the man frequents and we'll somehow get him interested enough in you to warrant a conversation struck up between the two of you, and then we'll see if we can get entry into the investments through Holt." Peter said, they were going out on a limb here with Neal's theory – he prayed to God that Neal was right in his suspicions about Michael Holt and that they could gain the much needed leverage that they needed on the slowly deteriorating situation.
"I'm not often wrong." Neal said leaning back in his chair, clasping his hands together in front of himself as he shot Peter a smug thousand watt grin. Neal Caffrey was in fact hardly ever wrong about anything.
"Well since we've found our new attack point, I guess that means we're done here for the night and we can all go home early." Peter said, earning sounds of approval from the rest of his team.
Neal was just about to stand up and leave with the rest of the group when a file inside of one of the folders on the table caught his attention, "Uh – I think I just want to go over a few more things here just to make sure." Neal said, adding as much innocence to his voice as possible as he reached for a stack of files on the table and made it look like he was perusing through them.
Peter just shot him a look which Neal assumed was Peter's famous 'what the hell are you up to now Caffrey' look, but nonetheless agreed to let Neal stay behind and look over the files that they had on Pierson. "All you are to do is go over the files, understood Neal? No funny business." Peter said, his tone serious as he shot Neal another look of suspicion and confusion and walked out of the conference room. Peter knew Neal had a motive other than just looking over the files, he was fairly certain the young con man was up to something, the man was always up to something – he was Neal damn Caffrey.
Once Neal was sure that everybody had left he chucked aside the file he was reading and reached for the folder that had initially caught his attention. The folder contained all the information on Nitrac Insurance's current employees who were involved in the investment scheme, he scanned through the folder until he found the file that he was looking for – Jason Brenner.
Quickly scanning through the file he read the location of where Brenner lived, and was pleasantly surprised to note that it was actually within his two mile radius. Shoving the file back into the folder, he placed the folder under a few others and headed out of the conference room determined to pay Jason Brenner a visit and sort out the situation and the guilt that lingered regarding the loss of the man's job.
Neal Caffrey did not get nervous, Neal Caffrey was the picture perfect example of calm. So then why all of a sudden was it hard to breathe by just staring at a house. Neal stood outside of Brenner's house, debating about whether or not this was a good idea or not. He had come this far, certain of what he wanted to discuss, but the closer he got to the address the more constricting the feeling in his chest got. Why was this man causing him so much trouble? It was just one man – one man who Neal had done absolutely nothing wrong to yet he was still feeling as guilty as hell. This one man made Neal feel like he was the worst person in the world. Oh, he definitely needed to catch up on his sleep before he became Neal Caffrey – the emotional wreck.
Taking a deep, steadying breath he pushed open the gate that stood between him and Brenner's house and walked up to the front door. It was only a little after 8pm, he assumed the man should still be awake.
Well it's not like he has to get up early for work in the morning, right Neal? The annoying little recurrent voice inside his head snickered at him. I mean it's not like he has a job to go anymore.
Biting the inside of his cheek he shook his head to clear it of the unwanted thoughts and knocked on the door. He could hear the movement inside signalling that someone was in fact awake and coming to the door. It was only a few seconds later that the door opened to reveal a slightly intoxicated looking Jason Brenner. The expression on the man's face went from confusion to boiling rage in about 0.5 seconds.
"Youuuuu." The man slurred, lazily throwing his arm in the air to point his finger at Neal accusingly. "What the hell do you think you're doing here buddy?" The anger was evident in his voice, as well as the alcohol.
"I just came to speak to you, but I can see this is a bad time so I'll just-" Neal had started to say, before he was cut off by the increasingly angry voice of Jason Brenner.
"A bad time? Oh you think this is a bad time? You fucking bet it is and there won't ever be a good time again because of you Neal Caffrey. I should have never let some stupid damn convicted felon help me. I mean now that I think about it how fucking bizarre is that?" Jason laughed sardonically.
"Mr Brenner if you would just let-" Neal attempted to get through to the man for the second time, but again was interrupted.
"No. Fuck you. I don't want your piss poor explanations." The anger was back in Jason's voice.
"Look I didn't mean to get you fired!" Neal all but shouted, anger also slowly creeping into his voice. Why couldn't the damn man believe him.
"Don't you raise your voice at me, who the hell do you think you are coming here after what you did. I don't see why the FBI even has you work for them, a god damn donkey would be more helpful. You seem like all you do there is fuck their cases up. Now get off my property." Jason yelled starting to close the door on Neal.
"No. I actually help them a lot, I never intended to get you fired, I didn't mean that." Neal said more to himself than to Jason, as he put his foot in the door stopping Jason from closing it on him. "Look I'm sorry that –" Neal had started to say but again was cut off for the third time.
"Oh you're sorry? Sorry? Where does that fucking get me! Nowhere. I am done with this and the FBI's sorry excuse of help. I don't ever want to see your face again Mr Caffrey and I don't ever plan to. I'm fairly certain that whatever you get your crummy little hands on you turn to shit. Because that's what you are, you're a person who ruins other people's lives, and that's all you ever will be. Now move your foot before this door here ends up breaking it off." Neal, shocked, complied with the request and Jason slammed the door in the bewildered Neal Caffrey's face.
Neal didn't want to admit it but the words that Brenner had just yelled at him hit a lot harder than he would ever care to admit. They basically mimicked the exact thoughts of the annoying voice inside his head, saying how he always managed to screw people's lives up and now he actually thought he was starting to believe it.
It's because of you that Jason Brenner was fired, it was also because of your actions and stupidity that got Kate killed, if it wasn't for you she would still be alive, and oh don't forget about how you almost got Mozzie killed by getting him shot, and Ellen, well that was your fault also –
Neal didn't know it but as soon as the thoughts had started up he had instinctively clenched his fists, knuckles turning deathly white and his nails were now sharply digging into his palms. The pain was calming, relaxing almost and it confused him as to how such a strange thing could bring about such relief.
It must have something to do with the endorphin rush that occurs when your brain senses pain he thought, but that didn't make it any less strange of a thing to do to calm yourself down. Most people thought of happy thoughts, meditated even – not caused their body physical pain as a means to cope with the emotional pain. It had worked though, the thoughts had stopped and at the moment that was all that Neal cared about. Taking a deep breath he realized that he was still standing at the doorstep to Jason Brenner's. He quickly walked back towards the sidewalk, exiting the property and headed down the street, needing to get as far away as possible from that house all of a sudden.
Neal's thoughts were racing in his head, his heart was pounding a thousand miles a minute and all he could think about were all the lives that he had fucked up along the years. If he didn't know any better he was certain it seemed like he was having a panic attack – and Neal Caffrey definitely did not get panic attacks.
Before long he had managed to make his way back home, unlocking the front door he stepped inside the foyer and flicked the nearby light switch on, the light lit up the room and made Neal stop dead in his tracks as he took in the sight before him which made his face lose all traces of colour and his breath hitch in his throat.
There was blood everywhere.
There was so much blood, the floors, the walls, the furniture, everything – it was all soaked in the crimson red liquid. Neal stood there with the front door half open with his body half inside and half outside still – frozen to the spot. His face was a deathly pale shade and he was breathing through his mouth in fast, erratic attempts to get enough oxygen as he tried to control his breathing and racing heart.
There was now laughter and giggling – small children laughing. It sounded foreign to his ears, there was so much blood everywhere why were there children laughing? In the blink of an eye a small child had appeared in front of him and Neal gasped as he took in the child's appearance and how similar the kid looked to the child in his nightmare from the night before that stared back at him in the mirror's reflection.
It was him.
The small boy stood there, stomach and palms smeared in blood, the boy slowly lifted his head to look at Neal and a smile spread across the kid's face. "I kill everyone I meet." The small child giggled innocently before running off behind Neal and out the front door.
Neal quickly whipped his head around so that his vision could follow the boy, but by the time he had turned around the child was nowhere to be seen – he had disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared. Neal turned back around to take in the scene in front of him and was shocked to notice that everything was back to normal – the floor, walls and furniture were all back to their normal state, there was nothing there that even slightly suggested that the room was filled with blood seconds earlier.
Unsure of what the hell was happening all that Neal wanted to do was get out of the foyer; his home. It felt oddly eerie after seeing it covered in blood splatters and he wanted nothing more than to get as far away as possible from the building right now. Glancing around the room his eyes locked onto an object he was searching for and he headed straight towards the cabinet near the stairs. He grabbed the set of keys to the car that June had left when she went on her trip and quickly exited the building, locked the door and let out the breath he didn't even know that he was holding.
I need to get out of here.
Was all that was repeating inside of his head as he stared down at the car keys in his now shaking palm.
I hope you guys enjoyed. As I said in the first chapter, this is an extremely depressing fic - and with only minimal knowledge on psychology this might not be medically accurate in regards to the hallucinations. All I know is that after I stayed awake for 40+ hours studying my thoughts were haywire and I hallucinated - nothing drastic, it was a pelican haha. So I'm basing Neal's experiences off of that, plus coupled with the extreme guilt he's feeling I find that hallucinations can be justified. Anyway, please don't forget to review if you liked it! :)