![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
s2309Title: Call My Name And I'll Come Running
Characters (Pairings): Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke, OFC, mentions of Neal's mother
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1300
Warnings: Noncanon death of a canon character - fire in a house.
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin’s brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Neal is going back to a place he’d avoided for quite a long time.
Author’s Note: This is not my best work. You have been warned.
Set post-anklet.
Title's from Help by Hurts.
For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hybridshade's prompt 'after all these years' over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
run_the_con.
The evening after his anklet was taken off for the final time was quieter than Neal thought it’d be.
It was a really good restaurant, sure, but Peter, Elizabeth, Diana and Jones were the only other people with him. The Harvard Crew had been invited but bowed out graciously.
That may or may not have had something to do with the stinking day old egg sandwich he found in his hat.
Before he knew it, there was champagne in everyone’s glasses and toasts were being made in his name and everyone started hunting down desserts.
“Do you know where you’re going yet?” Peter asked, for about the twentieth time today.
Neal sighed and looked up. “Honestly? I have absolutely no idea.”
Peter nodded slowly. He clearly didn’t believe Neal.
Neal looked back down at his menu. The desserts looked fairly standard: crème brûlée, tiramisu, ice cream, pound cake (originally, equal measures of flour, sugar, egg and butter)...
Gooey butter cake.
He wasn’t sure where that popped into his head from. But now he knew where he’s going. Or, at least, where his heart wanted him to go.
“What are you planning to steal?”
Neal looked up, eyebrows raised.
“You’ve got a pretty huge grin on your face, the kind that usually says that you’ve just figured out how to con someone out of something. What are you planning to steal?”
“Not steal, Peter. Recover. I’m planning to recover something.”
“What?”
He nearly said it out loud, “I’m going to recover some memories.” But it’s too cheesy. He shook his head instead.
Peter sighed.
Neal looked down at his bus ticket. It was a piece of paper with letters on it. It shouldn’t be conflicting him this much or this badly.
It was the exact opposite of the route he’d taken to New York when he was eighteen.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to go. But he was sure he didn’t want to stay, at least in the short term.
A bus rumbled in. Neal would wager his ticket that it was the one to St. Louis. Fate had a way of making dramatic moments even more so.
He looked at the ticket, then at the city. If he boarded the bus, he’d be going back to a place he’d avoided for quite a long time. Physically and mentally.
He boarded the bus and wished it’d leave already so he didn’t have the option of getting down again.
Time had been good to Irene’s Bakery.
It could have been nasty, forcing the bakery into closing down through financial pressure and stiff competition from industrial giants like Walmart, but the bakery had been allowed to survive. Neal couldn’t be more thankful.
It hadn’t lost its country charm, Irene would have made sure of that. The red brick walls crumbled a little, the chairs outside were a little creaky, but the food was good, the pastries excellent and Irene herself did an excellent job of scaring away the bad sort of crowd.
Neal walked in slowly. Every step, every sight had an old memory attached to it. The chairs and tables and counters, though they had long since been upgraded to newer models, were positioned exactly as they had been.
Shoes squeaking reluctantly as they skidded to a halt right in front of the till, money clutched in two sweaty hands like it was a slippery newt, a soft but confident voice calling out, “One slice of gooey butter cake, please, Irene.”
“You going to order?”
Neal looked up. Irene (not the young, joyful Irene he was familiar with, but an older, more crabby Irene) was glaring at him. He was confused at the hostility till he looked down. Apparently, he’d been leaning his elbows on the counter. Irene hated that with a passion.
“A slice of gooey butter cake please, i- if you don’t mind.” He skipped adding her name at the last minute.
“All right.” She seemed to have softened at the very mention of the local confection.
“Do you have a batch straight out of the oven?” Those tasted best, he remembered.
Irene scrubbed the counter fiercely. “Lucky for you, one came out not two minutes ago. Hold on while I cut it.”
“Boy knows his cake,” called a gruff voice from somewhere in the back.
“He sure does.”
Neal sat down at the table closest to the till. Habit, maybe, it used to be his usual haunt, or maybe just a polite gesture to Irene, so that she wouldn’t have far to walk.
Neal picked his cake apart with his fingertips, making sure to leave none on the table. He picked up one crumb with his thumb and stuck it into his mouth.
Irene stopped and squinted at him suspiciously. “There is only one child I know who eats his cake like that. Danny Brooks?”
“Yes, Irene?” Neal’s eyes flashed with joy, the edges of his lips dying to burst into a grin.
Irene sat down opposite him, “After all these years, darling boy! Where have you been?”
“Oh, here and there.” Neal smiled mysteriously.
“All right, keep your secrets. You could’ve come back anytime. Why now?”
“Lots of reasons. Many of them related to this bakery.”
Irene flicked her dusting cloth in his direction. “Don’t you try to flatter me, darling. I’m immune to your charms - been exposed to them for far too long.”
“Okay, Irene.” He went back to his cake, eating it crumb by crumb, as though that might reduce the total calories.
“I’ve seen you do that before, Danny, it’s going to take an hour and a half.”
“I’ve got time.” He pulled his legs up to sit cross legged on the chair and flexed his hands.
If the other customers hadn't been curiously watching their exchange, she would have thought she was seeing a mature, grown up ghost.
The next one and a half hours were spent joyfully attacking the cake and talking about nothing.
He paid her with a fifty dollar note and a grimace to show that he didn’t have change. She didn’t seem to mind.
“You know, I remember a time, you used to pay me with coins you’d scrounged from who knows where. Where’d you get all this money?”
“From my pocket,” said Neal, the picture of innocence.
“And where did it get into your pocket from?” She crossed her arms sternly.
“Not telling!” Neal nearly collapsed in silent laughter.
Irene laughed heartily and picked up a paper parcel, already stained in telltale smears of butter.
“Irene, really, you shouldn’t-”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll cut the cost from this handsome fifty dollar note, but Daniel Brooks, you are not leaving this bakery without a piece of that cake.” She glared at him again for good measure.
Neal raised his hands in surrender, took the change and the parcel, and left. He was tempted to run out, but the doorway was too low now to risk anything like that.
Irene watched him leave out of the corner of her eye and smiled.
He didn’t come in with dirt-caked hands cake and leave the area surrounding the washbasin dripping with water, nor did he stick his tongue through a gap in his teeth and try to make her laugh every seven seconds, but this was definitely Danny Brooks.
How she’d missed the life he brought to her bakery.
He walked the streets like someone who knew them, taking shortcuts through front lawns and back alleys.
He stopped in front of a burnt out house that no one had bothered to bring to the ground. His old home.
Ellen had told him about it long ago, about the fire that consumed the house and his mother all at once. He hadn’t grieved. There was nothing to grieve for. His mother had left him the same day as his father.
He hadn't asked for her to take care of him the way Ellen had. If she'd been there for him at least as much as Irene, if she'd even showed an ounce of responsibility, he would have come back as soon as he heard.
He looked at the charred walls and wondered if the fire had been fueled by alcohol, or if she’d set it herself, trapped in one of her delusions.
He shook his head, laid down the parcel of cake on the doorstep and turned his back on his childhood home. But not on St. Louis. He owed Irene at least that much.
Characters (Pairings): Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke, OFC, mentions of Neal's mother
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1300
Warnings: Noncanon death of a canon character - fire in a house.
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin’s brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Neal is going back to a place he’d avoided for quite a long time.
Author’s Note: This is not my best work. You have been warned.
Set post-anklet.
Title's from Help by Hurts.
For
hybridshade's prompt 'after all these years' over at run_the_con.The evening after his anklet was taken off for the final time was quieter than Neal thought it’d be.
It was a really good restaurant, sure, but Peter, Elizabeth, Diana and Jones were the only other people with him. The Harvard Crew had been invited but bowed out graciously.
That may or may not have had something to do with the stinking day old egg sandwich he found in his hat.
Before he knew it, there was champagne in everyone’s glasses and toasts were being made in his name and everyone started hunting down desserts.
“Do you know where you’re going yet?” Peter asked, for about the twentieth time today.
Neal sighed and looked up. “Honestly? I have absolutely no idea.”
Peter nodded slowly. He clearly didn’t believe Neal.
Neal looked back down at his menu. The desserts looked fairly standard: crème brûlée, tiramisu, ice cream, pound cake (originally, equal measures of flour, sugar, egg and butter)...
Gooey butter cake.
He wasn’t sure where that popped into his head from. But now he knew where he’s going. Or, at least, where his heart wanted him to go.
“What are you planning to steal?”
Neal looked up, eyebrows raised.
“You’ve got a pretty huge grin on your face, the kind that usually says that you’ve just figured out how to con someone out of something. What are you planning to steal?”
“Not steal, Peter. Recover. I’m planning to recover something.”
“What?”
He nearly said it out loud, “I’m going to recover some memories.” But it’s too cheesy. He shook his head instead.
Peter sighed.
-:-
Neal looked down at his bus ticket. It was a piece of paper with letters on it. It shouldn’t be conflicting him this much or this badly.
It was the exact opposite of the route he’d taken to New York when he was eighteen.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to go. But he was sure he didn’t want to stay, at least in the short term.
A bus rumbled in. Neal would wager his ticket that it was the one to St. Louis. Fate had a way of making dramatic moments even more so.
He looked at the ticket, then at the city. If he boarded the bus, he’d be going back to a place he’d avoided for quite a long time. Physically and mentally.
He boarded the bus and wished it’d leave already so he didn’t have the option of getting down again.
-:-
Time had been good to Irene’s Bakery.
It could have been nasty, forcing the bakery into closing down through financial pressure and stiff competition from industrial giants like Walmart, but the bakery had been allowed to survive. Neal couldn’t be more thankful.
It hadn’t lost its country charm, Irene would have made sure of that. The red brick walls crumbled a little, the chairs outside were a little creaky, but the food was good, the pastries excellent and Irene herself did an excellent job of scaring away the bad sort of crowd.
Neal walked in slowly. Every step, every sight had an old memory attached to it. The chairs and tables and counters, though they had long since been upgraded to newer models, were positioned exactly as they had been.
Shoes squeaking reluctantly as they skidded to a halt right in front of the till, money clutched in two sweaty hands like it was a slippery newt, a soft but confident voice calling out, “One slice of gooey butter cake, please, Irene.”
“You going to order?”
Neal looked up. Irene (not the young, joyful Irene he was familiar with, but an older, more crabby Irene) was glaring at him. He was confused at the hostility till he looked down. Apparently, he’d been leaning his elbows on the counter. Irene hated that with a passion.
“A slice of gooey butter cake please, i- if you don’t mind.” He skipped adding her name at the last minute.
“All right.” She seemed to have softened at the very mention of the local confection.
“Do you have a batch straight out of the oven?” Those tasted best, he remembered.
Irene scrubbed the counter fiercely. “Lucky for you, one came out not two minutes ago. Hold on while I cut it.”
“Boy knows his cake,” called a gruff voice from somewhere in the back.
“He sure does.”
Neal sat down at the table closest to the till. Habit, maybe, it used to be his usual haunt, or maybe just a polite gesture to Irene, so that she wouldn’t have far to walk.
Neal picked his cake apart with his fingertips, making sure to leave none on the table. He picked up one crumb with his thumb and stuck it into his mouth.
Irene stopped and squinted at him suspiciously. “There is only one child I know who eats his cake like that. Danny Brooks?”
“Yes, Irene?” Neal’s eyes flashed with joy, the edges of his lips dying to burst into a grin.
Irene sat down opposite him, “After all these years, darling boy! Where have you been?”
“Oh, here and there.” Neal smiled mysteriously.
“All right, keep your secrets. You could’ve come back anytime. Why now?”
“Lots of reasons. Many of them related to this bakery.”
Irene flicked her dusting cloth in his direction. “Don’t you try to flatter me, darling. I’m immune to your charms - been exposed to them for far too long.”
“Okay, Irene.” He went back to his cake, eating it crumb by crumb, as though that might reduce the total calories.
“I’ve seen you do that before, Danny, it’s going to take an hour and a half.”
“I’ve got time.” He pulled his legs up to sit cross legged on the chair and flexed his hands.
If the other customers hadn't been curiously watching their exchange, she would have thought she was seeing a mature, grown up ghost.
The next one and a half hours were spent joyfully attacking the cake and talking about nothing.
He paid her with a fifty dollar note and a grimace to show that he didn’t have change. She didn’t seem to mind.
“You know, I remember a time, you used to pay me with coins you’d scrounged from who knows where. Where’d you get all this money?”
“From my pocket,” said Neal, the picture of innocence.
“And where did it get into your pocket from?” She crossed her arms sternly.
“Not telling!” Neal nearly collapsed in silent laughter.
Irene laughed heartily and picked up a paper parcel, already stained in telltale smears of butter.
“Irene, really, you shouldn’t-”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll cut the cost from this handsome fifty dollar note, but Daniel Brooks, you are not leaving this bakery without a piece of that cake.” She glared at him again for good measure.
Neal raised his hands in surrender, took the change and the parcel, and left. He was tempted to run out, but the doorway was too low now to risk anything like that.
Irene watched him leave out of the corner of her eye and smiled.
He didn’t come in with dirt-caked hands cake and leave the area surrounding the washbasin dripping with water, nor did he stick his tongue through a gap in his teeth and try to make her laugh every seven seconds, but this was definitely Danny Brooks.
How she’d missed the life he brought to her bakery.
-:-
He walked the streets like someone who knew them, taking shortcuts through front lawns and back alleys.
He stopped in front of a burnt out house that no one had bothered to bring to the ground. His old home.
Ellen had told him about it long ago, about the fire that consumed the house and his mother all at once. He hadn’t grieved. There was nothing to grieve for. His mother had left him the same day as his father.
He hadn't asked for her to take care of him the way Ellen had. If she'd been there for him at least as much as Irene, if she'd even showed an ounce of responsibility, he would have come back as soon as he heard.
He looked at the charred walls and wondered if the fire had been fueled by alcohol, or if she’d set it herself, trapped in one of her delusions.
He shook his head, laid down the parcel of cake on the doorstep and turned his back on his childhood home. But not on St. Louis. He owed Irene at least that much.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 03:08 pm (UTC)I bet there are people in St. Louis who remember Danny, people like Irene :D
Great work \o/
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Date: 2013-10-14 03:18 pm (UTC)Thank you so much! I was worried the angst in the end would be too much.
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Date: 2013-10-14 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 03:58 pm (UTC)That was one of the first details I thought up :D
Thank you so much for reading!
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Date: 2013-10-14 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 04:00 pm (UTC)Me too :)
Glad you liked it!
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Date: 2013-10-14 07:10 pm (UTC)The description of that cake and how Neal picks it apart to enjoy it sounds so yummy and makes me really curious what it tastes like :).
Thank you for writing and sharing.
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Date: 2013-10-15 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 11:11 pm (UTC)Really lovely, thank you<3
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Date: 2013-10-15 10:25 am (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2013-10-15 02:58 pm (UTC)And not at all. I love a little post-series fun, even if it's only a short glimpse :)
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Date: 2013-10-15 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-16 02:34 am (UTC)It's so frustrating when things don't work. I'm in the middle of a mini-bang at the moment. My artist's work is coming along nicely but my fic has me at a complete block at the moment :[
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Date: 2013-10-16 02:47 pm (UTC)I was considering signing up for the wc reverse bang (new comm), but I've just got too much happening. I have an H/C bingo card that I would really like if it reached blackout, though that seems impossible right now, an angst bingo card that I haven't seen yet that I'm not going to hold such high hopes for, and the hc advent.
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Date: 2013-10-16 05:00 pm (UTC)I can completely empathise with your perfectionism. I beta all my own stuff and I do grammar checks as I go - if something's not right I can't for the life of me keep writing until it's fixed!
Guess who signed up for the WC reverse bang just a few hours ago? I won't fully commit myself until I've seen the art, though. I'm actually not all that familiar with the arty side of this fandom. Most of my writing is for the Supernatural fandom and I've signed up for their reversebang (not to mention the big bang and mini bang I'm already doing) and oh, I think I have a couple of bingo cards myself! ...yikes. So much to do, so little time~
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Date: 2013-10-18 10:44 am (UTC)The art part is actually interesting, and it's the reason why I almost broke. Kanarek13 and leesa_perrie are two artists I can name offhand who are in the wc fandom, and their art is pretty amazing!
I would watch SPN - i did watch a couple episodes once - but White Collar doesn't like to share my fandom headspace with any other show :P I think it enjoys being my centre of attention, fandom-wise :P
I hate not having a computer to access LJ. The iPad is really frustrating me.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 04:49 pm (UTC)Wheee~ *fistbump* I always read through my fics so many times before I post them and I'm often still tweaking them even after they're posted. Somehow seeing them all neat and tidy on LJ reveals all the things I missed! You're right- it's deadly!
Back in the beginning of my writing days my headspace was definitely dominated by a single fandom, but nowadays I seem to be able to compartmentalise a bit better and I can manage to write for a few different fandoms 'at once'. That said, I would say SPN probably takes up about three-quarters of my writing/fandom involvement. I find it more liberating in terms of what I can get away with fic-wise, and while I love writing for WC (but, of course!) I do find it a bit limiting at times. Though, perhaps I'm spouting nonsense and I'm still finding my footing with my WC writing~ :P
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Date: 2013-10-19 10:07 am (UTC)I'm in love with Neal Caffrey and Matt Bomer both. He (they?) is the only reason I'm in fandom to this extent. My god, that man is beautiful. Picturing moments that I write down is utter bliss. :3
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Date: 2013-10-19 03:43 pm (UTC)Ahh Matt truly is beyond gorgeous. I often wonder how he's even real!? No one should be that well-shaped and proportionate!! An anomaly of the universe, that guy is. And while I wouldn't necessarily say he's the reason I'm so invested in WC fandom, it certainly doesn't hurt! A mug like that only inspires me all the more xD
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Date: 2013-10-20 08:13 am (UTC)IKR? Those last few seconds of the season premiere don't hurt either. Have you watched it yet? [no spoilers i promise] OMG so many scenes with him looking drop dead gorgeous. I nearly made out with the TV screen :P
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Date: 2013-10-20 03:44 pm (UTC)Arrghhh I haven't watched it yet!! D: I've been visiting my hometown and playing 'good daughter' so I haven't had time. But when I get home tomorrow, guess what's first on the To Do List? :P
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Date: 2013-10-20 04:18 pm (UTC)Oh, that sweet torture of having to wait for the hotness. There's a new channel in my country that shows it about 16-18 hours after the US broadcast, but just knowing that it's on the interwebs was so tempting I nearly broke and watched it online. Glad I waited though, it was an HD channel and the detail was ahmazing. :D
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Date: 2013-10-21 07:22 am (UTC)Ugh, don't tease! In Australia we get some shows on our free-to-air channels within a day or two of their US broadcast (ie like Homeland and NCIS), but other less popular stuff can take weeks (or more!) unless they're shown on pay TV/cable, which only a moderate amount of people have because it's a goddamn rip off... And they wonder why people here download so much illegally!? Anyway, I have no idea when or if they'll be showing new WC so good thing my internet is half decent! XD
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Date: 2013-10-21 11:35 am (UTC)I need someone to hash out the caffrey burke day idea with - are you game?
That sounds horrible! I wasn't teasing, i had no idea. Glad your internet is good! Do you use eztv?
I download insane amounts of music, mostly because I fall in love with songs and not albums, and paying for that many albums just for one song would burn a serious hole in my pocket.
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Date: 2013-10-21 12:12 pm (UTC)And yes, I'm all ears!
Eztv is my go-to, actually. I check it religiously XD Australia is always so behind with these things, so I'm pretty used to it by now! Sadly there's not a lot I end up watching on tv because I'm just too darn impatient. I download a reasonable amount of music as well, but mostly because a lot of what I listen to is Japanese or Korean and it costs an arm and a leg to buy a CD/they don't always make things available internationally even on itunes. Ugh. First world problems and all that... :P
no subject
Date: 2013-10-21 02:39 pm (UTC)Oh, agreed. Most of the artists I listen to are the not as popular kind, so while you can find their songs, they're generally a little hard to get and just easier to download and pay next to nothing.
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Date: 2013-10-14 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 10:27 am (UTC)Thank you for reading :)
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Date: 2013-10-14 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:12 am (UTC)Thank you so much!!
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Date: 2013-10-15 07:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:14 am (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2013-10-15 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:14 am (UTC)Butter cake
Date: 2013-10-16 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-16 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-17 12:32 am (UTC)Wonderful!
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Date: 2013-10-18 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-02 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-03 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-10 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 08:37 am (UTC)