WARNING: This chapter contains slightly more, for a lack of a better word - disturbing content then that of the previous ones. It does get quite dark/angsty towards the ending. Please read at your own discretion.
This chapter was extremely hard to write towards the ending and it got me thinking if I should continue this story, if it was hard for me to write I'm wondering if people can stand to read this fic. I'm not exactly sure how much "angst" people like, but this story gets a lot darker before it gets better, as I have a lot of different things install for this fic, this is only chapter 5 and I have at least 15 more chapters planned, and with each of my chapters being roughly around 5000-6000 words, I have a lot more things to come - that is if anybody wants to continue reading.
Chapter 5 – Art of Breaking
~When the day has come that I've lost my way around, and the seasons stop and hide beneath the ground. When the sky turns grey and everything is screaming; I will reach inside just to find my heart is beating. You tell me to hold on, oh you tell me to hold on, but innocence is gone, and what was right is wrong. I'm bleeding out, I bare my skin, and I count my sins, and I close my eyes, and I take it in, oh I'm bleeding out~
"Neal!" Peter shouted running towards his CI who was now lying in an unconscious heap on the ground, he knelt down on the ground beside Neal's limp form. "Neal! Hey wake up!" Peter shouted at the younger man, but Neal remained unresponsive.
"I'm going to need a backboard and a gurney over here right now!" Dr Ross shouted as he knelt down beside his now unconscious patient; he placed two fingers underneath Neal's jaw and felt for his pulse. "Pulse is weak and thready." The doctor said addressing the nurses and other ER residents that had rushed over at the sight of the unconscious man lying on the ER's waiting room floor.
Moments later they were greeted with more ER staff with a gurney and backboard; it wasn't long before they had gotten Neal situated onto the board and lifted up onto the awaiting gurney. "Right, uh let's take him into resus bay one. He's not in the need for resuscitation at the moment but I don't want to take any chances." Dr Ross shouted taking control over the situation at hand. They had just rolled the gurney into the resus - trauma room as Dr Ross had requested and placed a pulse ox onto Neal's finger when he began to stir.
The light above him was blinding and it took a few moments before he could begin to take in his surroundings, once his vision had returned to him he was immediately displeased to notice that he was laying on a gurney in the middle of what looked to be some examination room. The next thing that he noticed was Dr Ross and a crowd of other people dressed in scrubs all around him attaching various cords to his body.
"S-stop." Neal weakly said while trying to push away the hands that were hovering around his body. He removed the device from his finger and proceeded to sit himself up. Neal immediately realized how much of a bad idea that was when his entire world flipped upside down as he tried his hardest to stay upright – it felt as if his head was tied to a thousand bricks that were dangling over the edge of the gurney, it felt as if there was an invisible force tugging his head back down and he wanted nothing but to comply with that and lay back down and sleep for an eternity – but he didn't though. Right now he couldn't afford to show any weakness to Peter as that would not work well in his favour if he wanted any chance at convincing the older man that he was indeed fine and that everything was in fact alright.
Bitting down on his bottom lip to keep back a groan Neal swung his legs off to the side of the gurney and attempted to stand up. The movement caused the pounding in his head to return at a horrific force and the dizziness crept back up on him causing everything in his line of vision to once again swirl together. Neal shut his eyes together as tightly as he could, placed a hand out in front of him onto the gurney to steady himself and willed for all of this to just go away.
"Neal – Neal hey listen to me, listen to the doctors here. You need to just lie back down and get yourself checked out; you obviously are suffering from a concussion." The worry was clearly evident in Peter's voice as he placed his hand on Neal's shoulder and tried to lightly push the younger man back down onto the gurney. He felt Neal's body tense as he tried to remain standing and fight back against Peter's efforts to lie him down. "Caffrey don't be so damn stubborn all the time and lie back down, you need medical attention." Peter added a bit more pressure to his push this time and managed to get Neal half laying back onto the gurney.
"I'm fine." Neal said slowly, he knew that Peter wasn't going to believe him, hell – Neal didn't even believe the words himself. "Look I just want to go home. I don't need to be here." Neal once again sat upright and earned himself a disapproving look from Peter.
"I'm sorry Mr Caffrey but you're not exactly what I'd diagnosis as fine. You just passed out unconscious on my ER's floor and I'm sorry but I cannot go against my better judgement and just let you walk out of those doors, you could have something seriously wrong with you ranging anywhere from a concussion to an intracranial bleed from the impact. I really cannot discharge you." Dr Ross said observing the man in front of him; he really was a stubborn one who was adamant about not getting any medical attention.
"No." Neal firmly said, pushing Peter's hands away from him, he managed to stand himself up again. "If you won't discharge me then I am going to sign myself out of here AMA. If you or anyone else has a problem with that then you can feel free to call yourself a lawyer, but right now I'm leaving and nobody is stopping me from doing so." With that he pushed past a stern looking Peter Burke and headed out of the trauma room and into the hallway, he could practically feel Peter's gaze burning into the back of his head as he walked away.
"Neal! What the hell!" Peter shouted following after the ex-con. "You're obviously injured why won't you get yourself checked out? There's just a few simple tests Neal, it'll take a few minutes." Peter all but shouted at him causing Neal to grimace at the unusually loud level of Peter's voice which did wonders on his headache.
"Peter I just want to go home and go to sleep. Honestly I am fine, I've been through worse, and this is nothing that I can't handle by myself that needs to be checked out by doctors." Neal said fishing into his pocket and retrieving his cell phone. He called a cab company, signalling to Peter that this conversation was well over.
After hanging up the phone Neal walked over to the admit desk and grabbed the forms that he needed to sign to say that he was going to leave on his own accord, against all medical advice. He signed his name on the dotted line, trying to ignore the fact that it kept moving, and handed the form back to the receptionist.
"Neal I could have dropped you home." Peter said once Neal had walked back over to where he was standing.
"Oh it's fine. I don't want you to have to go out of your way. You should be getting home by now anyway, El's probably worried about what's happening."All Neal honestly wanted to do right now was be alone and sitting in the car with Peter in a tense, awkward silence was not high on his list of things to do right now – or ever.
Peter couldn't help but feel a nagging feeling creeping up inside him, insisting that he should take Neal home anyway. Something was telling him that he should even take Neal back to his own house for the night and not leave the man alone right now. There was something that just felt off altogether and Peter didn't like it one bit, but unable to place what exactly it was that was concerning him he shook the nagging feeling aside. Neal was a grown man and he could take care of himself and if he wanted to go home and spend the rest of the evening by himself and be left alone to his own devices then he was free to make that choice.
"Alright then, I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning at work to go over the final details about Michael Holt. That is of course if you're feeling okay in the morning. Peter said, silently studying Neal.
"Yeah sure, I'll see you tomorrow Peter." Neal said walking out of the ER to wait outside for the cab to come and collect him. Right now he was mentally kicking himself at the events that had just transpired – all he had wanted to do was get away from his damn house for the night, and now he was headed right back there in worse shape than what he was in when he left – plus he now had a suspicious Peter.
His head was still pounding away mercilessly, he was fairly certain that he did in fact have a concussion and should have probably gotten himself checked out, but all he wanted to do right now was to go home and sleep and forget about all of the events that had taken place in the last few hours.
The cab pulled up out the front of his house after what felt like hours but was in fact only a matter of minutes. He handed the driver the amount of money that was due and hopped out of the car. Neal stood there on the side of the road and stared up at the house that he had labelled as his home for years. By now the cab had driven away and there was nobody out on the streets. Neal stood there, on the sidewalk out the front of his house looking up at the empty building and realized just how completely and utterly alone he truly was.
With June away and all of the staff gone home for the night all of the lights in the building were turned off. It was dark, covered in shadows and completely alone inside there. Once he entered the building he'd be all alone, just by himself – in the solitude that he thought he so desperately wanted and craved. Now however he wasn't so sure about that, although he had wanted to be alone a few moments earlier back at the hospital a small part inside of him had maybe wanted Peter to insist that he shouldn't be alone right now.
He didn't want to be alone right now.
A small part of him had wanted Peter to force him to open up right then and there and explain just what exactly was happening in his life and why he was driving around illegally in the first place. Maybe he wanted Peter to tell him that he wasn't such an amazing con man and that he saw through all of his games and his stupid facades and that he knew that something was desperately wrong with the younger man. Maybe for once he just wanted someone to show an interest in his well being, maybe he was getting tired of pretending day after day, maybe he wanted somebody to notice that everything wasn't going as okay as he wanted them to think and that it was all just an elaborate act that he was pulling. Maybe, just maybe, for once Neal Caffrey needed someone else's help but was too damn stubborn to admit it. Or maybe he just wanted someone to actually care about him for once – and maybe he wanted that person to be Peter Burke.
Neal wanted there to be someone that he could rely on, someone that he could trust with his deepest, darkest secrets. He wanted someone that he could call up in the middle of the night, no matter what the time was, when he was awoken in pure terror from the countless nightmares that he had, he wanted someone to tell him that none of it was real and that nothing was his fault. He needed more than ever to feel like someone actually wanted him here – needed him here, because he was starting to head down the thought process that if nobody needed him, if nobody actually needed him to be here – then why was he? Why did he bother continuously wasting everybody's time by just screwing around, fucking people's lives up daily and wasting oxygen. If nobody really cared that he woke up in the morning – then why exactly did he make the effort to?
Even though all throughout his life he had gotten by being alone, depending on himself for years and years had caused him to actually like being alone. Because when you started depending on other people, started needing other people in your life – you became weak; and Neal Caffrey was anything but weak. Except right now something told him that he wouldn't be able to keep going through these day to day motions, acting like everything was just wonderful throughout the day and then coming home and breaking down by himself.
He just couldn't keep falling down again and again, and then expecting himself to be able to pick up the pieces. He was certain that the time he fell down and got too far down that he couldn't possibly get himself back up was steadily approaching. Neal hated more than anything to admit it, he detested the idea greatly – but he was going to need someone's help before things got too far out of control that they couldn't be fixed.
Realizing that he was still standing outside his house, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opening them a few moments later he started walking towards the front door of the house, he unlocked it and stepped inside, leaned his back against the now closed door and let out the breath that he wasn't even aware he was holding. He immediately scanned the area in front of him, taking in his surroundings he was pleased to note that everything was just how it should be – there were no walls painted with blood, no creepy laughing and no small, blood splattered children running around. For some reason though that fact didn't even make his mood slightly better as he had expected it to have.
Not wanting to ponder on the fact he headed upstairs to his room, unlocked the door and headed straight towards his bathroom to take in his appearance and observe just how much damage the crash had caused. Once inside the bathroom he looked in the mirror and grimaced at the reflection staring back at him. The left side of his face was slightly bruised and was starting to turn a shade between purple and blue. He had a small cut above his left eye which had been the source of the earlier bleeding; there was a faint trail of blood also smudged across his forehead from where he had wiped at the blood to stop it from trickling down his face. He also noticed how pale his face was, how prominent his cheek bones were becoming, and the dark circles under his eyes were also becoming more and more defined as the days went by and his lack of sleep increased.
Neal dragged his gaze from his reflection and unbuttoned his dress shirt and slipped the material off of his shoulders and let the garment fall to the floor as he stared back up at his reflection in the mirror once again and took in the blue and purple blotches that danced across his chest from where the seat belt had been. Without even noticing it his gaze had gone from examining the bruises to watching his chest rise and fall with each breath that his lungs took in, he wasn't surprised to notice just how easily it was to see the outline of his ribcage with each breath. He really had lost a large sum of weight over the past few weeks from not eating, actually now that he had thought about it he hadn't even eaten anything today at all in between everything that had transpired throughout the day. It didn't surprise him though when he realized that he hadn't even felt slightly hungry despite not consuming anything at all in over 24 hours.
He didn't feel anything actually. Anything at all.
Except for the persistent pounding against his skull, the slight stinging from the cut above his eye, the pain across his face from where the bruises now lay and the pain in his chest from where the seat belt had rubbed. That was all physical pain however, and that was all that Neal felt at the moment. His emotions were usually haywire, but right now they were gone – he didn't feel the usual guilt, sadness, anger, regret – nothing.
Neal Caffrey felt emotionally numb and completely empty.
He did not like whatever it was that he was experiencing the slightest. The emotional numbness only lasted for a few more moments however before it was replaced by a painfully tightening, constricting feeling in his chest. It felt as if someone had somehow placed their hand through his chest and grabbed a hold of his heart and ruthlessly gripped onto it; and was squeezing the very life out of it. It wasn't long though before the constricting feeling was coupled with a warm sensation running down his cheeks, startled at the sudden sensation he brought his gaze back up to the mirror that was in front of him and was shocked to see that his face in the reflection was now stained with tears – he was crying.
This was something that he hadn't let himself do in ages, after Ellen's death he had allowed himself to cry for the first few days before he made himself stop wallowing in his own misery and buried all emotions related to Ellen in the deep, darkest corners of his mind. He hadn't expected to cry for a long while, because when Neal Caffrey wanted something buried – it usually stayed buried. This was something that he swore he wouldn't find himself doing anytime soon, this was something that he detested doing, Neal did not partake in crying or letting his true emotions show. Crying easily gave away just how you were truly feeling and it was something Neal regarded as a sign of weakness; a sign that you just weren't strong enough.
But yet here he was standing in the middle of his bathroom, covered in bruises and dried blood, staring at his own reflection crying uncontrollably. The racing thoughts were back once again, rushing around inside his head, but this time Neal couldn't even begin to understand what it was that they were saying. It felt as if everything was short-circuiting and all that he could do in response was cry even harder and stare at his damn reflection in the mirror in front of him – he was such a ghost of the man he used to be, he didn't even recognize the man that was standing in front of him staring back at him through the glass anymore.
Neal didn't know what it was that had possessed him, but before he knew what he was doing his right fist had swiftly gone out in front of him and his ears were greeted with the harsh sound of glass shattering and falling onto the tiled bench top as his fist collided with the glass in front of him. The pain immediately shot through his knuckles as the shards of glass dug into his skin at the contact, he felt the familiar warm liquid run down his palm and down his wrist as he pulled his arm away from the mirror in shock at what had just happened.
Tears still streaming down his face, unable to stop the sobs from wracking his body he just stood there completely in shock at what had just taken place. There was no doubt about it anymore – he was losing it. Thoughts and ideas that Neal did not want to think about kept swirling around in his mind, taunting him, beckoning him to listen to them and carry them out. They were yelling at him, shouting at him, explaining to him over and over that he was nothing – a nobody – just a useless tool to the FBI.
Oh Neal, you're not even considered a person to them, you're just another tool in the shed that they go and fish out when it's convenient to them and once all you're good for has been used up, you'll get chucked aside and thrown back in prison. Nobody cares about what happens to a broken, useless tool. Nobody ever needs a broken tool, there's no use for it – it's worthless. If it cannot complete the task it's required to do it gets thrown out with the trash and destroyed. Much the same as you will, except people would be glad to throw you out. You're like one of those tools that malfunction and don't do what they're meant to do, you're like a malfunctioning nail gun that just shoots nails randomly, and keeps on hitting people, and hurting them. You're a dangerous tool that needs to be destroyed before more innocent people get hurt trying to handle you. People would be so much better off without you Neal; everyone would be so much safer if you just didn't exist.
Before Neal even understood what he was doing he had reached out with his shaking, bloodied hand and grabbed a hold of his shaving razor and smashed the item against the basin in front of him repetitively until the shards of plastic had chipped off and all that was left lying there was the shiny piece of metal staring back up at him from the bench top. He grabbed a hold of the taunting piece of metal and ripped off the bandage that he had just earlier applied to his arm, he clenched his eyes tightly shut and allowed himself to release all the pent up emotions he had tried so hard to hold at bay. The anger, the guilt, the pain, the sorrow, the regret – everything that he had spent so long burying came crashing down over him, it was like a tsunami washing over him, drowning him out at sea, starving him of oxygen. It felt as if he was being suffocated alive as he finally acknowledged every single emotion that he had spent so long holding back, forcing into the dark corners of his mind, and refusing to acknowledge or except ever existed.
Neal didn't notice his legs give out underneath him until he felt his back slide down against the wall and he realized that he was now sitting on his bathroom floor, still crying uncontrollably as everything washed over him. The guilt of every single thing that he had done in his life, the pain that he had refused to ever accept that he was feeling, the sorrow that he tried so hard to push aside and ignore. There was too much that he had buried, and now it was swallowing him alive. Neal was not even close enough to being in a stable enough mind frame to cope with the amount of emotions that he felt washing over him; this was way too much for him to even try to deal with right now.
He dropped the blade from the shaving razor onto the floor and looked down at his arm to see what he had subconsciously done during his emotional breakdown. He was surprised to note that he couldn't even begin to see what amount of damage he had caused as all that his eyes could see was blood – there was so much blood. Neal was sure he could drown himself in it all. His entire upper forearm was covered in the crimson liquid and it was streaking its way down his arm, to his wrist and dropping onto the floor next to him. He closed his eyes tightly and tried his hardest to focus his mind on the physical pain that he was feeling, and not the tidal wave of emotions threatening to consume him.
He focused on the pain in his arm, it felt as if it had been set on fire after the damage Neal had just inflicted upon it. He focused as hard as he could onto that sensation and willed the thoughts and the emotions to stop and to leave him alone. Pulling his knees into his chest he buried his face into his knees, he felt the wetness from his face through his pants as he realized he was still in fact crying.
There was blood running down his right arm and onto the floor beside him from where he had smashed his fist into the mirror, there was also blood profusely running down from his upper left forearm from the events that had just transpired moments earlier in his fit of absolute pure and utter agony.
Neal sat there on his bathroom floor, huddled into a ball, his arms wrapped around his knees, staining the material of his pants from the blood that was still running down them. He was surrounded in shards of broken glass, and droplets and pools of blood, the tears were still streaming down his face as his body shook with every cry, his breathing was erratic and his heart felt as if it was going to jump out of his chest and onto the cold, tiled floor in front of him. Neal sat like this for what felt like hours, but was really only a matter of minutes until the exhaustion began to consume his body.
Is this how I made Jason Brenner spend his last few moments before he took his own life?
Was the last thing that coursed through Neal's mind before he finally succumbed into the darkness and into the deep sleep that he had been trying so desperately to seek out for days upon days – Neal just never imagined that he would attain it like this; crying and bleeding on his bathroom floor.
After this chapter, your thoughts and feelings in a review are extremely, extremely appreciated and needed. Thank you.