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s2309Title: the metal wraps itself around your bones
Characters (Pairings): Neal Caffrey, Rachel Turner, Peter Burke, multiple OFCs, (Neal/Rachel)
Rating: R
Word Count: 5842
Spoilers: Through Season 5
Warnings/Content notes: Painplay, rough sex, violence, language. For more qualitative notes, see below.
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Neal makes deals with demons, plural. They might turn out to be one too many for him to handle.
Author's Note: Title from The Road by Hurts. Inspiration from that song and Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons. For the 'deals with demons' square on my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hc_bingo card. Also posted to AO3.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elrhiarhodan - the little neal/rachel snippet thing I wrote for you is the beginning of this story. And yes, it ate my brain. Hope you don't mind :) (original prompt and fill).
Fair warnings - there are a number of them.
There is not enough explanation. There are loose ends. (e.g. how is Rachel even out of prison? And that's just one I've spotted.) I will be a bitch and not tell you important details that should have been declared right from the start. That's as intentional as it possibly can be - I just thought this thing up like three days ago, and if I let it ferment in the back of my mind, it will grow, and I will not be able to handle it.
For this reason, if you want a further glimpse into something, just ask me, and I will do my best to tell you. (Except for how Rachel is out. I have no clues, lol.)
This is the same demented, angst-laden writing style that seems to be the only way my brain can word as of lately. Very apology. Much contrite.
Have fun in the dark(er) corners of my mind! Don't get stuck, though, scary shit be going down there.
how are you supposed to be both the canvas and the paint
r.i.d
She tastes like sugar, she tastes like blood.
She pulls away, watches him so carefully he can feel his skin uproot itself, and he quickly realizes it isn't her. She bit his lip bloody, he doesn't know when (that is a bad thing, it is a bad thing), and he had coffee with far too much sugar just minutes ago.
She isn't Rebecca, not anymore. She's touching him and leaving behind shards of glass, he is so fragile in her hands, yet so enduring. She's scraping at his skin, the skin he worked so hard to fit into again, with those shards she made, tearing out feelings with them (that isn't fair, those don't reside in the bloodstream). Her hands are broken glass made from pieces of himself.
He shouldn't be letting her. He knows exactly how to make this stop. But he doesn't.
He looks so damn beautiful like this.
Before, he was what Rebecca Lowe wanted. Charming, dazzling, sweet. A touch too sweet, maybe.
But now? Now he looks a bit more like Rachel Turner's roadkill.
His eyes are the perfect dazed mixture of pain and lust, he's leaning heavily against the door like he needs it to stay the right way up, he's looking straight at her like he doesn't want to but can't help himself.
He can't help himself.
He's got sugar on his tongue (isn't that apropos) and a touch of blood on his lips, and she did that. He let her do that, with barely any resistance. She feels the urge to push him further, see when he finally pushes back. But she quashes it, because she doesn't want to hurt him, she really doesn't.
It seems she already has.
And, oh dear, he's starting to cry, a single tear at the corner of one eye, an exhale that's just a little too shaky. Maybe she should kiss him now, make him feel better. Kisses are healing, right?
She kisses away the tear, drags his bloody lip through her teeth, and thinks, Not always.
She pulls him further in, strips him of his clothes, sets him on the edge of his bed, straddles him. She holds his face carefully, so carefully (the nails digging into his skin are pure accident) pulls his chin up, and kisses him, and it feels just like reaching in with one hand and taking everything she wants, nails accidentally snagging on a few sore edges.
She loves it.
They're just lying there.
Not side by side.
Her hands are metal around his wrists, pulling him underwater, right where he wants to be. His bare skin glints with the lightest sheen of sweat. He doesn't have enough time to catch a breath, has centuries to let it go. They're looking straight into each other's eyes as she leaves bruises on his wrist.
They've never been like this.
Usually, it's just sex. Rough around the edges, a little too abrasive, not the kind you dream of or boast about or even imagine you'd crave (where's the love?), but sex. Simple. Understandable.
This... this is something else.
His body normally speaks volumes to her. A violent shudder, coursing through his body, a trembling lower lip, a long, luxurious sigh, that hurts, please do it again, a little gasp, his head turning to the side in between kisses, I need a minute to breathe, a certain arrangement of sweat-soaked hair on his forehead, tired eyes, slow breaths, here, take this, it's the closest thing I can give you to love.
Now, he isn't saying anything.
It scares her, just a little, the silence. Not enough to make her stop. She shifts both his wrists over his head, holds them in one hand, uses the other on him. She rolls his nipple between two fingers, presses a nail into the taut skin, not even trying to make him feel good, carrying him past that delicate balance of pleasure-pain straight into pain.
She doesn't hear a pained wince, eyes scrunched tightly shut, maybe a shake of his head, no, stop. Instead, he whimpers in the back of his throat, shuts his eyes, arches towards her hand, too much, I want more.
Finally, words. Not the ones she wants (those she'll never get), but words all the same.
She pushes him further.
The door clicks shut behind her.
Neal's lying on the bed, still. His eyes are only half closed, but he looks asleep. He has sheets tangled in his legs, bruises on his skin, that goddamned tracker somewhere in his arm. He pretends he can feel it, sneaking down the arm it was shot into, edging along carefully, this is unknown, enemy territory, after all.
Mozzie's right. Too many damn windows.
He's breathing slowly, still absorbing all the little cuts and scars. There are a hell of a lot of them. Not all of them are on his skin.
Maybe he shouldn't be doing that. Maybe he should leave them right there, on the surface, keep this senseless mask of nothing on his face, keep his nerve ends perfectly alert.
He opens his eyes fully, widens them as far as he dares. Too much. And that's with the lights off.
He flips them on.
Way too much.
He still feels a bizarre amount of nothing. Nothing is in his veins, nothing is on his face, nothing he can work with. If there's nothing to hide, then his face is his instrument, dancing perfectly to his tune.
Maybe, maybe he can use this.
He gets out of bed and puts on his good suit. He looks at the watch once, decides against it, changes his mind and decides for it. He puts it on, flicks the switch, talks into the mic, "I'm going out." He knows there's a team of FBI agents on the other end. He hopes like hell they didn't decide to fall asleep. Peter wouldn't. Jones and Diana wouldn't. But he doesn't know these people, and after his recent experience with FBI bureaucracy, he's going to let himself assume the worst of them.
He molds nothing into his game face. He is very impressed with the reaction time. All his nerve ends are jangling, but he has never been so in control of himself.
He has a job to do.
It's just a waiting game.
He has to wait for the right person to find out that he's looking for Taylor Ronson, wait for them to make contact, wait for them to trust him enough that they let him in further. He's been playing this game for many nights now, but tonight, he thinks he has the edge he needs to win.
He can play a waiting game. He can own the waiting game.
A picture pops up on the screen. The girl - woman - is so thin she's barely there, but there is something dangerous, wolflike, in her eyes.
Jacqueline Anderson, the ASAC over at Organized Crime, has the floor. "The only name we have for her is Lisbeth. She's the only one we have a name for. She's a tester, so to speak. She screens all the people who want in, makes sure they're crooked. There are a lot of people who want in. Most never make it to a face to face with her, let alone someone on the inside."
"I will," Neal says. He's not overstating himself. He knows he's that good. He just doesn't know if he wants to be that good.
"We're counting on that."
Neal nods slowly, eyes fixed on the screen.
He's right. It doesn't take long. And he was right. He just netted a face to face.
He first sees her when she walks in. He's impressed at himself. But then again, he's on form tonight.
She's wearing black, blending with shadows, is a shadow, has eyes on her back regardless but doesn't take half a second to acknowledge them. She does not give a shit.
He admires that.
For all her directness, she doesn't walk straight to him. She seats herself at the bar, two stools over from him, orders a drink, takes her time.
More waiting. He can manage that.
He's at his desk, eyes closed, all the words from the past half an hour or so playing themselves back in his head. They're sharp, dripping in blood, his blood. They're dancing across the backs of his eyelids like they didn't just gut him.
Does everyone know?
He opens his eyes. Everyone ducks their heads simultaneously, they just look even more guilty of staring at him. There are feet on his desk. His feet. Diana hasn't made a sound about them.
They know.
He shakes his head regretfully, he wishes they didn't. He tosses his rubber band ball aside, strides across the office, takes the stairs three at a time.
Peter, valiant, noble Peter, is defending him, fighting these high-up Bureau people and the sadistic thing they call a deal. He's fighting tooth and nail, with all he has, and from the looks of the guy on the right (pale, light green), he's hitting below the belt too.
His heart wants to break. He wants to cry. He allows neither event to take place.
He steps into Peter's office, breaks it up with just two words.
"I'm in."
Peter is going to kill him with words. Other people are going to try to kill him with far more dangerous things.
There is going to be so much fallout.
"Neal Caffrey," she says. Finally.
He looks up from his drink like he would at a stranger who happened to know his name - with a considerable amount of suspicion. "And you are?"
"Call me Lisbeth."
"Lisbeth," he says, and feels a lump in his throat. It's the first time he's pronounced her name, and it sounds too much like Elizabeth.
He's starting to feel again.
He locks his hands together, uses two fingers to press down on a bruise on his wrist. It works. The feelings stop.
"I hear you have a particular proclivity for art," she says.
"Depends. What kind?"
"Grey."
That could mean a multitude of things. Grey area. Grey market. Grey as in bleak. Most of those have one thing in common - illegal.
"Grey has certain... attractions," he says carefully.
She gives him a small smile. "I hoped it would."
This is happening.
Her hair is wild.
That's the one detail he finds himself fixated on, among a myriad others. Wild hair, curly, no, frizzy, like a lighthouse, like a neon sign GPS marker.
Maybe that's overstating it. But even so. It seems like an inconvenience for a person with a job such as hers. Stealth isn't exactly synonymous with jet black ringlets.
He focuses on her hair because her eyes are a touch too captivating to stare into for extended periods of time. Thankfully, there's a wisp of hair across her forehead. Intentional? Possibly. Her eyes are dazzling and enchanting and at the same time, very dead. Like his own, tonight, more animal than human.
Maybe that's why he makes it. Gets a face to face with someone on the inside.
He doesn't have to stop himself from languishing in a victor's surge of adrenaline, because there is none. This is too small a victory. There's too much at stake.
The watch is on. The people on the other end get an audio recording. For as long as he can hang on to it, at least.
They turn into a dark alley. Neal's a little confused, this makes no sense. Then they're faced with a man whose defining features are his muscles, even though he isn't obscenely built.
Lisbeth points at Neal over her shoulder, says, "He has a bug on him," and makes her way to the wall, away from the action. She seems to prefer that.
He closes his eyes, stands very still, and opens them again when no one searches him.
The man is still standing there, eyebrows raised.
Oh. "Right hand. Watch. I think."
He moves to take it off, but stops when aviators (he isn't wearing any, but he really should be) raises a hand. He holds out his wrist instead, lets it be stripped of the watch, watches the watch get tossed to Lisbeth.
"This is FBI issue," she says, before switching it off.
He prays that the people in the van trust him to handle this. Or that they're asleep.
He lets his face melt into understanding. "That explains it."
He feels the eyes on him, shrugs them off, and continues. "I won quite savagely at poker today. The man opposite me insisted on betting his watch for a last round. I won that too."
"And the logical next step was to put it on?"
He shrugs. "I like to show off. And rub in a well-earned victory."
She shakes her head and smashes the thing.
Then, he feels aviator's hands patting him down.
He's stripped methodically of anything that could be used to hide something and isn't soft, feel-through fabric. He's left in his shirt and pants, divested of most of his lock picks and all of his sartorial indulgences.
Now would be a really good time to feel terrified for his life.
But he isn't. He can feel a hard edge to his jaw. He feels oddly prepared for this. Even though there's no way he could have anticipated any of it, there's no way he can tell what's coming.
Thank you, Rachel.
"You're kidding me," Rachel says dryly. "It's the 21st century and you don't know how to write code, much less perform a basic hack?"
"I'm a thief, not a spy," he replies in the same tone.
"I know you're a gentleman thief, I've seen your knight in shining armour act. I didn't think you'd take it quite this far."
Neal shrugs.
"Come on. I'll teach you."
He looks at her with a curious mixture of disbelief and exhaustion.
"Call it quid pro quo."
He spits out a laugh. "For what?"
"For this." She digs her nails into his shoulders like she intends to drown him (maybe she does) and pulls him closer.
"Who says I'm not getting anything out of this?"
"You forget I know your tells."
He closes his eyes, feigns a touch of annoyance, shrugs it off. Perfectly.
He's getting better at this. Lying to the one person who knows him and his tells best. He needs to know he can fool Rachel completely. If he's not at his best for this undercover op, the stakes are definitely life and death. And he'd prefer not to end up with a slit throat.
They leave the alley, head to a car. The FBI hasn't made a move yet, thank whatever stars are saving his life repeatedly today. Lisbeth's in front of him, the other guy behind, they're being careful.
Just as carefully, right before they enter the car, he angles his hand towards a street camera, body blocks it from the both of them, and crosses his fingers, don't follow me, everything's okay, for just a moment before he's herded in.
He's alone now. Except for a tiny, undetectable tracker somewhere in his arm. And how much does that even count for?
Their lair turns out to be an abandoned warehouse. An impressively renovated abandoned warehouse. It looks abandoned right up until they walk in, shut the door and turn on the lights.
Then, it's a freaking palace.
There are people scattered everywhere. Not many of them, but they're quite a sizable crowd.
"Taylor Ronson. We don't know what he looks like, but we know the name. He's the one you're looking for. He's the one you never forget to be careful of. He's run a very tight ship for an impressive number of years. Responsible for multiple major art thefts."
"Why isn't this a White Collar case, then?"
"Art theft is only a fraction of his operations. The rest is rather more unsavoury."
"I'd like to go in with my eyes open, Agent Anderson."
She nods. "I'll make sure you do." She pauses. "They lost a member recently."
The screen flicks to a dead body. Another woman. She's lying on something like a box, one hand by her face with a paintbrush in it. Blood everywhere, from the slit throat.
"Cara Harrisson. She was their resident forger. She reached out to us, informed us that this group existed, said she couldn't handle it anymore. We managed to strike a deal - protection for information. This is her six hours after she made that call.
"Feels a lot like a message."
"It is. She betrayed them, and she paid with her life." She minimizes it, takes them back to a screen with the FBI logo. Far more comforting. "They've gone underground, haven't done much of anything in a while. They're looking for a new guy, and they're being very careful."
"And that's where I come in."
The new guy's thrown into the open, with no clue of what to do.
Taylor watches him, as does everybody else.
Usually, everyone who's gotten this far has pegged Ben Daniels as Taylor Ronson. And why not? He's tall, not too buff, commands a room, looks intimidating enough to keep this horde of murderers together. No one expects the bespectacled, frosty woman in the corner to head this operation.
She loves being underestimated, it gives her material to play with.
The new guy walks towards her. Her glare hardens. He continues, unfazed, holds out a hand and says, "Ms. Ronson. It's a pleasure."
She watches him impassively. "I don't know whether to tell you that you're lying or that you're a keeper."
"Both will do."
She smiles for a fraction of a second (it chills him to the bone, perfect) and shakes his hand. "I hear you're quite capable with a paintbrush."
He chooses his words carefully, just as she did. "I have been known to create fairly passable replicas of many of the Old Masters' works."
"How passable?"
"They'll get through authentication by an expert."
"Perfect."
Every member of her team tests Neal, tries to find a weakness, checks and double checks and triple checks that he's who he says he is (a liar, a thief, a forger, a con man).
Then they leave him alone. It's his only sign that he passed muster.
It suits him perfectly. All he has left to then is listen.
Lisbeth watches Neal Caffrey carefully. She doesn't trust him. She barely trusts the rest of Taylor's team, and that only because they've been around this long and haven't made a wrong move, yet.
Caffrey's still a wild card. Won't stop being a wild card, till there's something or someone newer for her to focus her suspicions on. Or maybe she'll split her time. That's yet to be seen.
The kid's nearly falling over from exhaustion - he's been up for three days straight working on some painting. A nice person would have rescued him about a day in. She waits till he trips on something, catches him by his collar, deposits him in a chair and says, "Eat something."
He blinks at the paintbrush in his hand.
She sighs. This is going to be work. She relieves him of the brush, tosses a box of cereal at him, is only marginally more careful with crockery, cutlery, milk, and sugar.
He blinks some more.
"I'm not going to make it for you."
"I know, it's just. You're the only nice person here."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
He pokes at the box of cereal. She lounges on the recliner and watches him figure out how all those things go together.
He takes his time.
He figures it out, starts to eat, stops halfway, and says, "I have to be free."
She doesn't know where it's going, and she isn't going to help.
He continues. "That's my greatest weakness. As my life's going right now. What about you?"
"I shore up weaknesses for a living, you don't think I wouldn't know my own?"
"I didn't say that."
He shuts up then, mercifully, so she obliges him and answers. "I need something to protect. I'll settle for something to be suspicious of."
"And right now that's me."
She decides to toy with him a little. "Which one?"
"...Both?"
That seems to be his favourite answer.
And there. She's done obliging people for the day.
She knows a lot about Neal Caffrey now.
He has a close friend, Jackie, he calls her at nine in the evening most days. You could set a watch by that ritual.
He fucks an assassin who goes by Rebecca Lowe. She could be an asset, if he mentioned her, brought her in. He hasn't yet.
When he's out, he spends a decent amount of time at a little hole in the wall that happens to have the most exquisite suits possible. She isn't sure how he spends his time. She suspects it's the clothes. She doesn't get it.
She's tried getting close, getting visual confirmation. She sees his shadow occasionally, in the back, framed by suits. She's tried getting closer, but that makes her too visible, there's no way to listen without being there, and she doesn't suspect him enough to weigh herself down with all the equipment that comes with a tiny electronic bug. Knowing where he goes is enough.
He's inside right now, and she's watching. She's been watching him for a while, will watch him for a while longer.
It's what she does. She watches. And if he makes her suspicious, she'll find out why, she'll kill him.
There are no two ways about it.
Neal leaves in a bit of a hurry, for no particular reason other than that he can. He feels like something's about to go wrong, and he'd like to be mobile when it does, so he can run.
There's an audio recording of everything significant from the past few days burning a hole somewhere in there. The Feds will pick it up later.
Later being the operative word.
He catches sight of a Brooks Brothers suit. Too soon to be the pick up guy. That had better not be the pick up guy.
He heads straight for the studio entrance in the same alley he's in.
It's the pick up guy.
Shit.
He knows that they've put a tail on him, so he's made sure that everything he does outside the warehouse makes sense either under the being human heading (buying food, sleeping) or the being Neal Caffrey heading (spending hours around exquisite suits).
He can't explain Brooks Brothers.
A knife whistles through the air and embeds itself, hilt deep, into the agent's arm.
Neal wants to cry, scream, run, but he just stands, frozen in shock, till someone shoves him out, away, "He's not dead, get out of here!", it's Lisbeth, she thinks the agent's a threat, he doesn't have to explain, and, thank god, the agent rolls over, grimacing in pain, he's not dead.
Neal he turns and runs, doesn't even spare a thought for the recording, doesn't worry about her finding it, he runs like he has something to run for.
As soon as he sees Jacqueline Anderson, Peter loses the temper he's been keeping a very tight grip on for the past few hours.
"What the hell did you do with my C.I.?"
She looks at him like she doesn't know him. She doesn't know him, apparently. "How about we take this to my office. This conversation sounds like it should happen behind closed doors."
There's barely two or three agents lingering. It's 9 o'clock on a Thursday night. There isn't much of an audience.
Peter continues. "He had a *knife* chucked at him?"
She knows exactly what he's talking about, he can see it in the way her face hardens.
"Calm down," she says. Her voice is cold. "I put out a Bureau-wide notice that we needed an undercover with a very specific skill set. All I know is that AD Johnson practically handed me that undercover, I don't know how. I didn't know that he was your C.I. till he mentioned it to me. I tried to ask questions, believe me, but they weren't taking them."
"I still don't-"
"Agent Burke. We're just a couple of ASACs, stuck in a pile of bureaucratic shit, do not pin this on me."
She's incredibly controlled, and right now, she's cutting straight through all of his rage and letting him think clearly.
"I'm sorry," he says, a little too softly.
She nods. "Neal's going to call in a couple of minutes. Come upstairs if you want to listen in."
She heads up the stairs, her agents follow. He feels horribly out of place, this is very unlike his own office, the dynamics are completely different.
He follows them eventually.
Neal's voice is eerily normal. "Hey, Jackie," he says cheerfully. "How are you?"
"We got the tape. Only your prints on it, for as much as that means. It seems intact. How are you holding up?"
"I can't seem to get this painting right. It's very fidgety, always turns out too shaky. I'll get it eventually, though." Not okay, hanging in there. "Hey, do you remember Sam?" He pauses. "Little guy, cut himself last Christmas, trying to pull off a party trick, bit of an idiot?"
"He was taken straight to a hospital, he's had the knife removed, he's been stitched up. He's okay now. He won't be when he hears a few choice words about not interfering with a delicate covert operation"
"Yes, that's him."
Jacqueline turns the volume down.
Peter looks at her, questioning.
"He said 'yes'. It means he's done. He'll cover with some patter, then hang up." She puts the headphones down. "We are being careful."
"Yeah," Peter says distractedly. "I owe you an apology, Agent Anderson, I shouldn't have-"
"Don't worry about it. I would have done the same thing."
He smiles a little.
He's about to leave when he's stopped by her voice.
"Do you want in on the takedown? When it happens?"
"You'll have me?" Peter asks, bewildered. He knows exactly what kind of liability he looks like. But if he can be on the front lines, if he can be the first person between Neal and them, he will shut up right now.
"Yeah," is all she says.
"Thank you," he murmurs. His voice keeps getting softer. He needs to speak up. And now his internal monologue sounds like a high school teacher.
"Don't thank me." She looks at him for just a moment. "I know what it's like to have someone you care about in the field. I know what it's like to lose them. I hope you don't."
Three months.
That's how long Neal spends with them.
Three months, and his tolerance for violence increases like he never thought it would. He watches people die, he watches people be hurt and he tolerates, he endures, much more than if they'd left a forensic trace (his testimony still isn't reliable in court, not as a basis for an argument, anyhow).
Three months, and he stops sleeping at the warehouse after the first nightmare, because everyone wakes up when he screams in his sleep, everyone operates on a hair trigger, Lisbeth nearly killed him that time.
Three months, and he's afraid he's going to become addicted to Rachel, addicted to the way she hurts him, clears out his head. Three months, and he needs her to clear out his head, he's seen too much to ever be able to live comfortably with it.
Three months, and the amount of blood he sees shed is too much, too much for one person to handle, he has to press down hard on bruises Rachel left, on bruises he made sure she left, to clear his mind, so he can do his job, so he doesn't go crazy replaying it all in his head.
Three months, and Lisbeth goes from occasional quiet compatriot to cold blooded murder to an eerie combination of both. She keeps switching between them, dizzyingly fast, she keeps him off balance in a way that he needs if he's going to get through this and keep conning them.
Three months, and where he was first using Rachel (she knew he was, he's sure of it), there she's taking care of him. Three months, and every day, that thing he gives her grows a little closer to love, and it terrifies him, she can't have been right before, she can't have.
Three months, and the nightmares stop.
Three months, and at the end of it, he's hardened. He looks the same, but his eyes have morphed from sparkle to flint, touching him is like slicing your hand open on a knife, maybe he's hurting Rachel back without knowing it.
Three months, and Rachel becomes the only person who understands, the only person who could ever understand. Rachel. Not Rebecca.
Three months, and he becomes unrecognizable. Except to Rachel. To her, he's finally kin.
The takedown is easy.
As soon as Neal locates their stash, finds their fence, and a myriad other details that are apparently necessary to end their operations everywhere, the FBI busts a job midway through (all the better for the evidence) and arrests everyone. That was the plan.
Or so he thought
Neal's being led away with the rest of them, but he keeps counting them over and over, and the numbers are off. Someone is missing.
It's only when someone grabs him before he can be loaded into a car, slams him into the side of that same car so hard he can feel the handcuffs dig into his wrists, and lays a knife (scalpel, his mind whispers, it looks like a scalpel) at his throat, that he remembers, Lisbeth.
For someone who spent the majority of the past three months watching him, she stays out of mind quite easily.
He was right to immediately peg her as dangerous.
"Come closer and I'll cut his carotid," she says, more to him than to the surrounding agents.
Everyone believes her.
"Why?" she hisses, straight into his ear.
"Because this is the only way I can be free." He points with his eyes to the FBI agents around him, looks her straight in the eye to show her he's not lying, even though, after conning them for three straight months, that doesn't count for much. I'm as trapped as you are, he doesn't need to say.
"How are you going to do this?"
"I'll manage."
"This isn't fair to you."
"They're offering to take off the anklet for ever, make me a free man. How am I supposed to refuse that?"
"Think, Neal. You could wait out the remaining year, year and a half, then get off the anklet, no strings attached."
"And what happens then? They're not going to let me go without some drama, that much I'm sure of by now. I take this deal, go on an undercover operation for them, wash my hands of the anklet after it's done-"
"And then spend the next two years working for the FBI?"
"Working for you. And they said I get extra vacation days. I'll use them."
"Even so."
Neal doesn't want to tell Peter everything, but he doesn't think Peter's going to let it go.
"I have a contingency plan. If it becomes too much."
"Okay."
Neal pauses. "Promise me this, please."
"Anything."
Neal knows exactly what Peter's just given him, and he's not going to misuse it. "If I have to run, let it be a clean break."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll have to destroy everything in this life if I'm going to go away and stay away. You have to let me. You have to help me."
Peter sounds horribly broken in a way that hurts more than he can handle. Especially knowing that he did this. It's almost too much to bear, but he pushes ahead.
"When I run, I need you to do that for me."
When. Neal really has no hope.
Peter agrees quietly, then disappears into the house.
Neal doesn't follow.
She quirks an eyebrow at that, cracks half a smile. "You really fucked that up, didn't you?"
He's got a knife at his throat, she's holding it there, he isn't about to argue.
She drops it, takes a few steps back, locks her hands behind her head. He straightens, more than a little surprised.
Nobody moves for about five seconds.
Someone steps forward, puts away their gun and begins to cuff her. Sense spreads like ripples in a pond, uneven, patchy, but there.
He locks eyes with her the whole time. He doesn't think he's ever made such extensive eye contact with her, she scares him, with good reason. But this time, he doesn't break it, not till her head disappears into the back of a car.
He feels... something.
It's a bit odd, considering the almost three months he spent with them, on the inside, the month he spent preparing for those three months, that's a lot of months piling up, a lot of time to try to feel nothing.
He's finally failing. What timing.
He is an artist. He makes himself into what people need him to be. He plays ever-so-carefully with the expression on his face. A smile here, a touch there, and he's the perfect picture of innocence. A few more artful strokes, and suddenly he owns the room and everyone's in awe of him. It's what he does.
So why does it feel so goddamned broken?
And then Peter's there. Larger than life. Peter's there and Neal sees his face for a second and then he's in his arms, and he feels warm and safe and just a little bit like crying, which is an unusually violent outburst of emotion after so long spent tugging on strings and he feels, he just feels.
He slides out of Peter's grip, arms still locked behind his back, sits on the ground, and whispers, "I did it. I did it, Peter, I did it. I did it. I did it...........", and Peter crouches with him, rests a hand on his shoulder, stays there.
He's freer than he was four months ago. Considering how tightly the Bureau is clinging to him, that is a big fucking deal.
He's freer. But not yet free. He'll settle for that for now.
He did it. "I did it, Peter." And oh, look at that, he's being loaded into an ambulance, and his hands aren't cuffed, and he didn't notice, mostly because Peter didn't let go, hasn't let go, is still here.
"Yeah," Peter says hoarsely. "You did it."
Neal feels Peter's hand in his hair, and it's soothing in a way that nothing has been in a long time, it's soft, it makes him feel soft, he doesn't remember feeling like this, not recently.
He cries a few tears of joy, right there.
Characters (Pairings): Neal Caffrey, Rachel Turner, Peter Burke, multiple OFCs, (Neal/Rachel)
Rating: R
Word Count: 5842
Spoilers: Through Season 5
Warnings/Content notes: Painplay, rough sex, violence, language. For more qualitative notes, see below.
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Neal makes deals with demons, plural. They might turn out to be one too many for him to handle.
Author's Note: Title from The Road by Hurts. Inspiration from that song and Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons. For the 'deals with demons' square on my
hc_bingo card. Also posted to AO3.elrhiarhodan - the little neal/rachel snippet thing I wrote for you is the beginning of this story. And yes, it ate my brain. Hope you don't mind :) (original prompt and fill).Fair warnings - there are a number of them.
There is not enough explanation. There are loose ends. (e.g. how is Rachel even out of prison? And that's just one I've spotted.) I will be a bitch and not tell you important details that should have been declared right from the start. That's as intentional as it possibly can be - I just thought this thing up like three days ago, and if I let it ferment in the back of my mind, it will grow, and I will not be able to handle it.
For this reason, if you want a further glimpse into something, just ask me, and I will do my best to tell you. (Except for how Rachel is out. I have no clues, lol.)
This is the same demented, angst-laden writing style that seems to be the only way my brain can word as of lately. Very apology. Much contrite.
Have fun in the dark(er) corners of my mind! Don't get stuck, though, scary shit be going down there.
-:-
how are you supposed to be both the canvas and the paint
r.i.d
-:-
She tastes like sugar, she tastes like blood.
She pulls away, watches him so carefully he can feel his skin uproot itself, and he quickly realizes it isn't her. She bit his lip bloody, he doesn't know when (that is a bad thing, it is a bad thing), and he had coffee with far too much sugar just minutes ago.
She isn't Rebecca, not anymore. She's touching him and leaving behind shards of glass, he is so fragile in her hands, yet so enduring. She's scraping at his skin, the skin he worked so hard to fit into again, with those shards she made, tearing out feelings with them (that isn't fair, those don't reside in the bloodstream). Her hands are broken glass made from pieces of himself.
He shouldn't be letting her. He knows exactly how to make this stop. But he doesn't.
-:-
He looks so damn beautiful like this.
Before, he was what Rebecca Lowe wanted. Charming, dazzling, sweet. A touch too sweet, maybe.
But now? Now he looks a bit more like Rachel Turner's roadkill.
His eyes are the perfect dazed mixture of pain and lust, he's leaning heavily against the door like he needs it to stay the right way up, he's looking straight at her like he doesn't want to but can't help himself.
He can't help himself.
He's got sugar on his tongue (isn't that apropos) and a touch of blood on his lips, and she did that. He let her do that, with barely any resistance. She feels the urge to push him further, see when he finally pushes back. But she quashes it, because she doesn't want to hurt him, she really doesn't.
It seems she already has.
And, oh dear, he's starting to cry, a single tear at the corner of one eye, an exhale that's just a little too shaky. Maybe she should kiss him now, make him feel better. Kisses are healing, right?
She kisses away the tear, drags his bloody lip through her teeth, and thinks, Not always.
She pulls him further in, strips him of his clothes, sets him on the edge of his bed, straddles him. She holds his face carefully, so carefully (the nails digging into his skin are pure accident) pulls his chin up, and kisses him, and it feels just like reaching in with one hand and taking everything she wants, nails accidentally snagging on a few sore edges.
She loves it.
-:-
They're just lying there.
Not side by side.
Her hands are metal around his wrists, pulling him underwater, right where he wants to be. His bare skin glints with the lightest sheen of sweat. He doesn't have enough time to catch a breath, has centuries to let it go. They're looking straight into each other's eyes as she leaves bruises on his wrist.
They've never been like this.
Usually, it's just sex. Rough around the edges, a little too abrasive, not the kind you dream of or boast about or even imagine you'd crave (where's the love?), but sex. Simple. Understandable.
This... this is something else.
His body normally speaks volumes to her. A violent shudder, coursing through his body, a trembling lower lip, a long, luxurious sigh, that hurts, please do it again, a little gasp, his head turning to the side in between kisses, I need a minute to breathe, a certain arrangement of sweat-soaked hair on his forehead, tired eyes, slow breaths, here, take this, it's the closest thing I can give you to love.
Now, he isn't saying anything.
It scares her, just a little, the silence. Not enough to make her stop. She shifts both his wrists over his head, holds them in one hand, uses the other on him. She rolls his nipple between two fingers, presses a nail into the taut skin, not even trying to make him feel good, carrying him past that delicate balance of pleasure-pain straight into pain.
She doesn't hear a pained wince, eyes scrunched tightly shut, maybe a shake of his head, no, stop. Instead, he whimpers in the back of his throat, shuts his eyes, arches towards her hand, too much, I want more.
Finally, words. Not the ones she wants (those she'll never get), but words all the same.
She pushes him further.
-:-
The door clicks shut behind her.
Neal's lying on the bed, still. His eyes are only half closed, but he looks asleep. He has sheets tangled in his legs, bruises on his skin, that goddamned tracker somewhere in his arm. He pretends he can feel it, sneaking down the arm it was shot into, edging along carefully, this is unknown, enemy territory, after all.
Mozzie's right. Too many damn windows.
He's breathing slowly, still absorbing all the little cuts and scars. There are a hell of a lot of them. Not all of them are on his skin.
Maybe he shouldn't be doing that. Maybe he should leave them right there, on the surface, keep this senseless mask of nothing on his face, keep his nerve ends perfectly alert.
He opens his eyes fully, widens them as far as he dares. Too much. And that's with the lights off.
He flips them on.
Way too much.
He still feels a bizarre amount of nothing. Nothing is in his veins, nothing is on his face, nothing he can work with. If there's nothing to hide, then his face is his instrument, dancing perfectly to his tune.
Maybe, maybe he can use this.
He gets out of bed and puts on his good suit. He looks at the watch once, decides against it, changes his mind and decides for it. He puts it on, flicks the switch, talks into the mic, "I'm going out." He knows there's a team of FBI agents on the other end. He hopes like hell they didn't decide to fall asleep. Peter wouldn't. Jones and Diana wouldn't. But he doesn't know these people, and after his recent experience with FBI bureaucracy, he's going to let himself assume the worst of them.
He molds nothing into his game face. He is very impressed with the reaction time. All his nerve ends are jangling, but he has never been so in control of himself.
He has a job to do.
-:-
It's just a waiting game.
He has to wait for the right person to find out that he's looking for Taylor Ronson, wait for them to make contact, wait for them to trust him enough that they let him in further. He's been playing this game for many nights now, but tonight, he thinks he has the edge he needs to win.
He can play a waiting game. He can own the waiting game.
-:-
A picture pops up on the screen. The girl - woman - is so thin she's barely there, but there is something dangerous, wolflike, in her eyes.
Jacqueline Anderson, the ASAC over at Organized Crime, has the floor. "The only name we have for her is Lisbeth. She's the only one we have a name for. She's a tester, so to speak. She screens all the people who want in, makes sure they're crooked. There are a lot of people who want in. Most never make it to a face to face with her, let alone someone on the inside."
"I will," Neal says. He's not overstating himself. He knows he's that good. He just doesn't know if he wants to be that good.
"We're counting on that."
Neal nods slowly, eyes fixed on the screen.
-:-
He's right. It doesn't take long. And he was right. He just netted a face to face.
He first sees her when she walks in. He's impressed at himself. But then again, he's on form tonight.
She's wearing black, blending with shadows, is a shadow, has eyes on her back regardless but doesn't take half a second to acknowledge them. She does not give a shit.
He admires that.
For all her directness, she doesn't walk straight to him. She seats herself at the bar, two stools over from him, orders a drink, takes her time.
More waiting. He can manage that.
-:-
He's at his desk, eyes closed, all the words from the past half an hour or so playing themselves back in his head. They're sharp, dripping in blood, his blood. They're dancing across the backs of his eyelids like they didn't just gut him.
Does everyone know?
He opens his eyes. Everyone ducks their heads simultaneously, they just look even more guilty of staring at him. There are feet on his desk. His feet. Diana hasn't made a sound about them.
They know.
He shakes his head regretfully, he wishes they didn't. He tosses his rubber band ball aside, strides across the office, takes the stairs three at a time.
Peter, valiant, noble Peter, is defending him, fighting these high-up Bureau people and the sadistic thing they call a deal. He's fighting tooth and nail, with all he has, and from the looks of the guy on the right (pale, light green), he's hitting below the belt too.
His heart wants to break. He wants to cry. He allows neither event to take place.
He steps into Peter's office, breaks it up with just two words.
"I'm in."
Peter is going to kill him with words. Other people are going to try to kill him with far more dangerous things.
There is going to be so much fallout.
-:-
"Neal Caffrey," she says. Finally.
He looks up from his drink like he would at a stranger who happened to know his name - with a considerable amount of suspicion. "And you are?"
"Call me Lisbeth."
"Lisbeth," he says, and feels a lump in his throat. It's the first time he's pronounced her name, and it sounds too much like Elizabeth.
He's starting to feel again.
He locks his hands together, uses two fingers to press down on a bruise on his wrist. It works. The feelings stop.
"I hear you have a particular proclivity for art," she says.
"Depends. What kind?"
"Grey."
That could mean a multitude of things. Grey area. Grey market. Grey as in bleak. Most of those have one thing in common - illegal.
"Grey has certain... attractions," he says carefully.
She gives him a small smile. "I hoped it would."
This is happening.
-:-
Her hair is wild.
That's the one detail he finds himself fixated on, among a myriad others. Wild hair, curly, no, frizzy, like a lighthouse, like a neon sign GPS marker.
Maybe that's overstating it. But even so. It seems like an inconvenience for a person with a job such as hers. Stealth isn't exactly synonymous with jet black ringlets.
He focuses on her hair because her eyes are a touch too captivating to stare into for extended periods of time. Thankfully, there's a wisp of hair across her forehead. Intentional? Possibly. Her eyes are dazzling and enchanting and at the same time, very dead. Like his own, tonight, more animal than human.
Maybe that's why he makes it. Gets a face to face with someone on the inside.
He doesn't have to stop himself from languishing in a victor's surge of adrenaline, because there is none. This is too small a victory. There's too much at stake.
The watch is on. The people on the other end get an audio recording. For as long as he can hang on to it, at least.
-:-
They turn into a dark alley. Neal's a little confused, this makes no sense. Then they're faced with a man whose defining features are his muscles, even though he isn't obscenely built.
Lisbeth points at Neal over her shoulder, says, "He has a bug on him," and makes her way to the wall, away from the action. She seems to prefer that.
He closes his eyes, stands very still, and opens them again when no one searches him.
The man is still standing there, eyebrows raised.
Oh. "Right hand. Watch. I think."
He moves to take it off, but stops when aviators (he isn't wearing any, but he really should be) raises a hand. He holds out his wrist instead, lets it be stripped of the watch, watches the watch get tossed to Lisbeth.
"This is FBI issue," she says, before switching it off.
He prays that the people in the van trust him to handle this. Or that they're asleep.
He lets his face melt into understanding. "That explains it."
He feels the eyes on him, shrugs them off, and continues. "I won quite savagely at poker today. The man opposite me insisted on betting his watch for a last round. I won that too."
"And the logical next step was to put it on?"
He shrugs. "I like to show off. And rub in a well-earned victory."
She shakes her head and smashes the thing.
Then, he feels aviator's hands patting him down.
He's stripped methodically of anything that could be used to hide something and isn't soft, feel-through fabric. He's left in his shirt and pants, divested of most of his lock picks and all of his sartorial indulgences.
Now would be a really good time to feel terrified for his life.
But he isn't. He can feel a hard edge to his jaw. He feels oddly prepared for this. Even though there's no way he could have anticipated any of it, there's no way he can tell what's coming.
Thank you, Rachel.
-:-
"You're kidding me," Rachel says dryly. "It's the 21st century and you don't know how to write code, much less perform a basic hack?"
"I'm a thief, not a spy," he replies in the same tone.
"I know you're a gentleman thief, I've seen your knight in shining armour act. I didn't think you'd take it quite this far."
Neal shrugs.
"Come on. I'll teach you."
He looks at her with a curious mixture of disbelief and exhaustion.
"Call it quid pro quo."
He spits out a laugh. "For what?"
"For this." She digs her nails into his shoulders like she intends to drown him (maybe she does) and pulls him closer.
"Who says I'm not getting anything out of this?"
"You forget I know your tells."
He closes his eyes, feigns a touch of annoyance, shrugs it off. Perfectly.
He's getting better at this. Lying to the one person who knows him and his tells best. He needs to know he can fool Rachel completely. If he's not at his best for this undercover op, the stakes are definitely life and death. And he'd prefer not to end up with a slit throat.
-:-
They leave the alley, head to a car. The FBI hasn't made a move yet, thank whatever stars are saving his life repeatedly today. Lisbeth's in front of him, the other guy behind, they're being careful.
Just as carefully, right before they enter the car, he angles his hand towards a street camera, body blocks it from the both of them, and crosses his fingers, don't follow me, everything's okay, for just a moment before he's herded in.
He's alone now. Except for a tiny, undetectable tracker somewhere in his arm. And how much does that even count for?
-:-
Their lair turns out to be an abandoned warehouse. An impressively renovated abandoned warehouse. It looks abandoned right up until they walk in, shut the door and turn on the lights.
Then, it's a freaking palace.
There are people scattered everywhere. Not many of them, but they're quite a sizable crowd.
-:-
"Taylor Ronson. We don't know what he looks like, but we know the name. He's the one you're looking for. He's the one you never forget to be careful of. He's run a very tight ship for an impressive number of years. Responsible for multiple major art thefts."
"Why isn't this a White Collar case, then?"
"Art theft is only a fraction of his operations. The rest is rather more unsavoury."
"I'd like to go in with my eyes open, Agent Anderson."
She nods. "I'll make sure you do." She pauses. "They lost a member recently."
The screen flicks to a dead body. Another woman. She's lying on something like a box, one hand by her face with a paintbrush in it. Blood everywhere, from the slit throat.
"Cara Harrisson. She was their resident forger. She reached out to us, informed us that this group existed, said she couldn't handle it anymore. We managed to strike a deal - protection for information. This is her six hours after she made that call.
"Feels a lot like a message."
"It is. She betrayed them, and she paid with her life." She minimizes it, takes them back to a screen with the FBI logo. Far more comforting. "They've gone underground, haven't done much of anything in a while. They're looking for a new guy, and they're being very careful."
"And that's where I come in."
-:-
The new guy's thrown into the open, with no clue of what to do.
Taylor watches him, as does everybody else.
Usually, everyone who's gotten this far has pegged Ben Daniels as Taylor Ronson. And why not? He's tall, not too buff, commands a room, looks intimidating enough to keep this horde of murderers together. No one expects the bespectacled, frosty woman in the corner to head this operation.
She loves being underestimated, it gives her material to play with.
The new guy walks towards her. Her glare hardens. He continues, unfazed, holds out a hand and says, "Ms. Ronson. It's a pleasure."
She watches him impassively. "I don't know whether to tell you that you're lying or that you're a keeper."
"Both will do."
She smiles for a fraction of a second (it chills him to the bone, perfect) and shakes his hand. "I hear you're quite capable with a paintbrush."
He chooses his words carefully, just as she did. "I have been known to create fairly passable replicas of many of the Old Masters' works."
"How passable?"
"They'll get through authentication by an expert."
"Perfect."
-:-
Every member of her team tests Neal, tries to find a weakness, checks and double checks and triple checks that he's who he says he is (a liar, a thief, a forger, a con man).
Then they leave him alone. It's his only sign that he passed muster.
It suits him perfectly. All he has left to then is listen.
-:-
Lisbeth watches Neal Caffrey carefully. She doesn't trust him. She barely trusts the rest of Taylor's team, and that only because they've been around this long and haven't made a wrong move, yet.
Caffrey's still a wild card. Won't stop being a wild card, till there's something or someone newer for her to focus her suspicions on. Or maybe she'll split her time. That's yet to be seen.
The kid's nearly falling over from exhaustion - he's been up for three days straight working on some painting. A nice person would have rescued him about a day in. She waits till he trips on something, catches him by his collar, deposits him in a chair and says, "Eat something."
He blinks at the paintbrush in his hand.
She sighs. This is going to be work. She relieves him of the brush, tosses a box of cereal at him, is only marginally more careful with crockery, cutlery, milk, and sugar.
He blinks some more.
"I'm not going to make it for you."
"I know, it's just. You're the only nice person here."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
He pokes at the box of cereal. She lounges on the recliner and watches him figure out how all those things go together.
He takes his time.
He figures it out, starts to eat, stops halfway, and says, "I have to be free."
She doesn't know where it's going, and she isn't going to help.
He continues. "That's my greatest weakness. As my life's going right now. What about you?"
"I shore up weaknesses for a living, you don't think I wouldn't know my own?"
"I didn't say that."
He shuts up then, mercifully, so she obliges him and answers. "I need something to protect. I'll settle for something to be suspicious of."
"And right now that's me."
She decides to toy with him a little. "Which one?"
"...Both?"
That seems to be his favourite answer.
And there. She's done obliging people for the day.
-:-
She knows a lot about Neal Caffrey now.
He has a close friend, Jackie, he calls her at nine in the evening most days. You could set a watch by that ritual.
He fucks an assassin who goes by Rebecca Lowe. She could be an asset, if he mentioned her, brought her in. He hasn't yet.
When he's out, he spends a decent amount of time at a little hole in the wall that happens to have the most exquisite suits possible. She isn't sure how he spends his time. She suspects it's the clothes. She doesn't get it.
She's tried getting close, getting visual confirmation. She sees his shadow occasionally, in the back, framed by suits. She's tried getting closer, but that makes her too visible, there's no way to listen without being there, and she doesn't suspect him enough to weigh herself down with all the equipment that comes with a tiny electronic bug. Knowing where he goes is enough.
He's inside right now, and she's watching. She's been watching him for a while, will watch him for a while longer.
It's what she does. She watches. And if he makes her suspicious, she'll find out why, she'll kill him.
There are no two ways about it.
-:-
Neal leaves in a bit of a hurry, for no particular reason other than that he can. He feels like something's about to go wrong, and he'd like to be mobile when it does, so he can run.
There's an audio recording of everything significant from the past few days burning a hole somewhere in there. The Feds will pick it up later.
Later being the operative word.
He catches sight of a Brooks Brothers suit. Too soon to be the pick up guy. That had better not be the pick up guy.
He heads straight for the studio entrance in the same alley he's in.
It's the pick up guy.
Shit.
He knows that they've put a tail on him, so he's made sure that everything he does outside the warehouse makes sense either under the being human heading (buying food, sleeping) or the being Neal Caffrey heading (spending hours around exquisite suits).
He can't explain Brooks Brothers.
A knife whistles through the air and embeds itself, hilt deep, into the agent's arm.
Neal wants to cry, scream, run, but he just stands, frozen in shock, till someone shoves him out, away, "He's not dead, get out of here!", it's Lisbeth, she thinks the agent's a threat, he doesn't have to explain, and, thank god, the agent rolls over, grimacing in pain, he's not dead.
Neal he turns and runs, doesn't even spare a thought for the recording, doesn't worry about her finding it, he runs like he has something to run for.
-:-
As soon as he sees Jacqueline Anderson, Peter loses the temper he's been keeping a very tight grip on for the past few hours.
"What the hell did you do with my C.I.?"
She looks at him like she doesn't know him. She doesn't know him, apparently. "How about we take this to my office. This conversation sounds like it should happen behind closed doors."
There's barely two or three agents lingering. It's 9 o'clock on a Thursday night. There isn't much of an audience.
Peter continues. "He had a *knife* chucked at him?"
She knows exactly what he's talking about, he can see it in the way her face hardens.
"Calm down," she says. Her voice is cold. "I put out a Bureau-wide notice that we needed an undercover with a very specific skill set. All I know is that AD Johnson practically handed me that undercover, I don't know how. I didn't know that he was your C.I. till he mentioned it to me. I tried to ask questions, believe me, but they weren't taking them."
"I still don't-"
"Agent Burke. We're just a couple of ASACs, stuck in a pile of bureaucratic shit, do not pin this on me."
She's incredibly controlled, and right now, she's cutting straight through all of his rage and letting him think clearly.
"I'm sorry," he says, a little too softly.
She nods. "Neal's going to call in a couple of minutes. Come upstairs if you want to listen in."
She heads up the stairs, her agents follow. He feels horribly out of place, this is very unlike his own office, the dynamics are completely different.
He follows them eventually.
-:-
Neal's voice is eerily normal. "Hey, Jackie," he says cheerfully. "How are you?"
"We got the tape. Only your prints on it, for as much as that means. It seems intact. How are you holding up?"
"I can't seem to get this painting right. It's very fidgety, always turns out too shaky. I'll get it eventually, though." Not okay, hanging in there. "Hey, do you remember Sam?" He pauses. "Little guy, cut himself last Christmas, trying to pull off a party trick, bit of an idiot?"
"He was taken straight to a hospital, he's had the knife removed, he's been stitched up. He's okay now. He won't be when he hears a few choice words about not interfering with a delicate covert operation"
"Yes, that's him."
Jacqueline turns the volume down.
Peter looks at her, questioning.
"He said 'yes'. It means he's done. He'll cover with some patter, then hang up." She puts the headphones down. "We are being careful."
"Yeah," Peter says distractedly. "I owe you an apology, Agent Anderson, I shouldn't have-"
"Don't worry about it. I would have done the same thing."
He smiles a little.
-:-
He's about to leave when he's stopped by her voice.
"Do you want in on the takedown? When it happens?"
"You'll have me?" Peter asks, bewildered. He knows exactly what kind of liability he looks like. But if he can be on the front lines, if he can be the first person between Neal and them, he will shut up right now.
"Yeah," is all she says.
"Thank you," he murmurs. His voice keeps getting softer. He needs to speak up. And now his internal monologue sounds like a high school teacher.
"Don't thank me." She looks at him for just a moment. "I know what it's like to have someone you care about in the field. I know what it's like to lose them. I hope you don't."
-:-
Three months.
That's how long Neal spends with them.
Three months, and his tolerance for violence increases like he never thought it would. He watches people die, he watches people be hurt and he tolerates, he endures, much more than if they'd left a forensic trace (his testimony still isn't reliable in court, not as a basis for an argument, anyhow).
Three months, and he stops sleeping at the warehouse after the first nightmare, because everyone wakes up when he screams in his sleep, everyone operates on a hair trigger, Lisbeth nearly killed him that time.
Three months, and he's afraid he's going to become addicted to Rachel, addicted to the way she hurts him, clears out his head. Three months, and he needs her to clear out his head, he's seen too much to ever be able to live comfortably with it.
Three months, and the amount of blood he sees shed is too much, too much for one person to handle, he has to press down hard on bruises Rachel left, on bruises he made sure she left, to clear his mind, so he can do his job, so he doesn't go crazy replaying it all in his head.
Three months, and Lisbeth goes from occasional quiet compatriot to cold blooded murder to an eerie combination of both. She keeps switching between them, dizzyingly fast, she keeps him off balance in a way that he needs if he's going to get through this and keep conning them.
Three months, and where he was first using Rachel (she knew he was, he's sure of it), there she's taking care of him. Three months, and every day, that thing he gives her grows a little closer to love, and it terrifies him, she can't have been right before, she can't have.
Three months, and the nightmares stop.
Three months, and at the end of it, he's hardened. He looks the same, but his eyes have morphed from sparkle to flint, touching him is like slicing your hand open on a knife, maybe he's hurting Rachel back without knowing it.
Three months, and Rachel becomes the only person who understands, the only person who could ever understand. Rachel. Not Rebecca.
Three months, and he becomes unrecognizable. Except to Rachel. To her, he's finally kin.
-:-
The takedown is easy.
As soon as Neal locates their stash, finds their fence, and a myriad other details that are apparently necessary to end their operations everywhere, the FBI busts a job midway through (all the better for the evidence) and arrests everyone. That was the plan.
Or so he thought
Neal's being led away with the rest of them, but he keeps counting them over and over, and the numbers are off. Someone is missing.
It's only when someone grabs him before he can be loaded into a car, slams him into the side of that same car so hard he can feel the handcuffs dig into his wrists, and lays a knife (scalpel, his mind whispers, it looks like a scalpel) at his throat, that he remembers, Lisbeth.
For someone who spent the majority of the past three months watching him, she stays out of mind quite easily.
He was right to immediately peg her as dangerous.
"Come closer and I'll cut his carotid," she says, more to him than to the surrounding agents.
Everyone believes her.
"Why?" she hisses, straight into his ear.
"Because this is the only way I can be free." He points with his eyes to the FBI agents around him, looks her straight in the eye to show her he's not lying, even though, after conning them for three straight months, that doesn't count for much. I'm as trapped as you are, he doesn't need to say.
-:-
"How are you going to do this?"
"I'll manage."
"This isn't fair to you."
"They're offering to take off the anklet for ever, make me a free man. How am I supposed to refuse that?"
"Think, Neal. You could wait out the remaining year, year and a half, then get off the anklet, no strings attached."
"And what happens then? They're not going to let me go without some drama, that much I'm sure of by now. I take this deal, go on an undercover operation for them, wash my hands of the anklet after it's done-"
"And then spend the next two years working for the FBI?"
"Working for you. And they said I get extra vacation days. I'll use them."
"Even so."
Neal doesn't want to tell Peter everything, but he doesn't think Peter's going to let it go.
"I have a contingency plan. If it becomes too much."
"Okay."
Neal pauses. "Promise me this, please."
"Anything."
Neal knows exactly what Peter's just given him, and he's not going to misuse it. "If I have to run, let it be a clean break."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll have to destroy everything in this life if I'm going to go away and stay away. You have to let me. You have to help me."
Peter sounds horribly broken in a way that hurts more than he can handle. Especially knowing that he did this. It's almost too much to bear, but he pushes ahead.
"When I run, I need you to do that for me."
When. Neal really has no hope.
Peter agrees quietly, then disappears into the house.
Neal doesn't follow.
-:-
She quirks an eyebrow at that, cracks half a smile. "You really fucked that up, didn't you?"
He's got a knife at his throat, she's holding it there, he isn't about to argue.
She drops it, takes a few steps back, locks her hands behind her head. He straightens, more than a little surprised.
Nobody moves for about five seconds.
Someone steps forward, puts away their gun and begins to cuff her. Sense spreads like ripples in a pond, uneven, patchy, but there.
He locks eyes with her the whole time. He doesn't think he's ever made such extensive eye contact with her, she scares him, with good reason. But this time, he doesn't break it, not till her head disappears into the back of a car.
He feels... something.
It's a bit odd, considering the almost three months he spent with them, on the inside, the month he spent preparing for those three months, that's a lot of months piling up, a lot of time to try to feel nothing.
He's finally failing. What timing.
He is an artist. He makes himself into what people need him to be. He plays ever-so-carefully with the expression on his face. A smile here, a touch there, and he's the perfect picture of innocence. A few more artful strokes, and suddenly he owns the room and everyone's in awe of him. It's what he does.
So why does it feel so goddamned broken?
And then Peter's there. Larger than life. Peter's there and Neal sees his face for a second and then he's in his arms, and he feels warm and safe and just a little bit like crying, which is an unusually violent outburst of emotion after so long spent tugging on strings and he feels, he just feels.
He slides out of Peter's grip, arms still locked behind his back, sits on the ground, and whispers, "I did it. I did it, Peter, I did it. I did it. I did it...........", and Peter crouches with him, rests a hand on his shoulder, stays there.
He's freer than he was four months ago. Considering how tightly the Bureau is clinging to him, that is a big fucking deal.
He's freer. But not yet free. He'll settle for that for now.
He did it. "I did it, Peter." And oh, look at that, he's being loaded into an ambulance, and his hands aren't cuffed, and he didn't notice, mostly because Peter didn't let go, hasn't let go, is still here.
"Yeah," Peter says hoarsely. "You did it."
Neal feels Peter's hand in his hair, and it's soothing in a way that nothing has been in a long time, it's soft, it makes him feel soft, he doesn't remember feeling like this, not recently.
He cries a few tears of joy, right there.
Tags:
- character: neal caffrey,
- character: ofc,
- character: peter burke,
- character: rachel turner,
- did i just write that?,
- fandom: white collar,
- for: hc bingo,
- meme spawn,
- oh my god i seriously just did this,
- ouch,
- pairing: neal/rachel,
- rating: r,
- type: angst,
- type: dark!fic,
- type: hurt/comfort,
- what the fuck.
