Fic: Mosaic 2/? - Cake
Cake
The first time Neal stole something, he was five years old.
Peter’s asked him before, not really expecting an answer, how he ended up where he is. A forger. A con artist. A thief.
A criminal.
Neal thinks about telling him, sometimes. Imagines what he’d look like if he did tell him. Wonders what Peter would think of him if he told him the truth.
If he told him about how his latest set of foster parents had decided to move for reasons unknown to the five year-old. About how they’d left behind a broken coffee table, the rusty front bumper of a Chevy in the front yard, eight packets of ketchup, half a box of stale cereal, and him.
He wonders what Peter would think if he told him that he stayed in that house by himself, with no power for five days before the food ran out (even though he’d been rationing it), and nobody noticed.
He wonders what Peter would think if he told him that he’d waited another two days, and still no one came, no one noticed that there was a little boy there, all alone, afraid and hungry.
He wonders what Peter would think if he told him that he waited until the neighbors had gone out before he snuck into their house through their dog-door, just looking for something to eat, when he found a beautiful round cake, frosted in swirls of blues and greens, with the words “Happy Birthday Timmy” in curvy iced words across it.
He wonders what Peter would think if he told him how he’d carefully carried it home, and sat on the floor in the dark, and licked every little bit of that frosting off, until his tongue was green and blue too, and how he’d never tasted anything so good, and he ate it so slow he wasn’t really hungry again for six whole days.
He wonders what Peter would think if he told him that the first time he ever stole something, he did it was because he was five, and alone, and hungry, and he’d never had a birthday cake before.
He thinks about telling him.
Sometimes.
But Peter’s not really expecting an answer, anyways.