Kayla Shay - Fanart, Fanfiction & More

Title: Carefully Constructed Façade
Author: kaylashay81
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: I'm not Bellesario or CBS, so I don't claim to own them.
Challenge: ncisdrabble100; Challenge #76 - Undercover
Word Count: 300
Timeline: Pre-Series

Note: This is actually an intro to a longer fic I'm working on titled Second Glance, but felt that it could stand on its own for this challenge.

Crossposted: ncisdrabble100; ncisfanfic; ncis_haven; tonydinozzo

Summary: Building a façade for others to see was second nature to him.

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No one takes a second glance and I use that to my advantage.

I learned that lesson at five years old in my father’s study as I gave him my daily report. He wanted to hear that I had mastered a new song on the piano, that the expensive writing instructor he hired had praised my beginning penmanship, that I had acted the proper gentleman at the social event my mother took me to… so I told him what he wanted to hear.

The next day, I stood on trembling knees waiting for him to berate me for lying. Waiting for him to say that my piano instructor called me hopeless, that the writing instructor still couldn’t make me understand the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’, that I was the one who put the spider on the back of the senator’s wife’s dress (in my defense, she had pinched my cheeks and called me a cute little sailor)… but he never did. All he did was ask me to pour his drink and dismiss me after he determined the beverage met his approval. My father took one glance and never looked deeper to see who I really was behind the façade I slowly created.

Perhaps I should thank him one day. If it wasn’t for his disregard, I wouldn’t be the half the federal agent I became without all those years of hiding myself from those around me. If he had looked deeper, he may have worked to bring me under his control before I was old enough to really fight him for it. I could have ended up the perfect heir he always wanted instead of being my own man; even if I don’t really know who I am. Not knowing is better than the alternative in my book.

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