s2309 | A Cage For The Mind, a White Collar fanfiction

Title: A Cage For The Mind
Characters(Pairings): Neal Caffrey, Kate Moreau (Neal/Kate)
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~500
Spoilers: Pilot
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin’s brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Cages, physical and not.
Author's Note: This is for the prompt "Cages" on my

hc_bingo card. Apologies for being AWOL, I was out of town for a bit. And I promise everybody reading this that the next fill for an

hc_bingo prompt will not be barely over 500 words. Just putting it out there.

Neal didn’t really get the point of prison.

The idea was solid and everything, but sticking him in an 8 by 10 cell for four years surrounded by some of the worst men on the planet wasn’t going to freeze his brain into submission. Honestly, the only way to stop him from conning and forging was to break all his fingers.

No, that wasn’t true. His silver tongue and million dollar smile would still get him great friends.

The point was, trying to rob him of his personality, his individuality, did nothing towards curbing his desire to paint art that someone else had created, to take things that weren’t his to take, to be exactly where he shouldn’t be.

At least, that’s what he thought when he was three months in.

-:-

And now? He would happily give up his paintbrush to be able to touch Kate, feel her in his arms and not have to pretend that a cold, feelingless lump of glass was her skin. Even now when he couldn’t even touch the glass. Especially now.

The funny thing was, if they’d let him go now, he’d find Kate, fix whatever was wrong and never con anybody again. But they weren’t going to let him go now. They would let him go three months later, when Kate would be gone, when he could do nothing to help her because she’d already be gone, and he would con his way to oblivion because his fellow dreamer would be gone.

Or he could break out of Supermax.

Neal took his chance and slipped into the staff bathroom.

No going back now. The ride he was on went all the way up, till it either hit the ceiling or managed to break through it.

-:-

When he was two years in, he became obsessed with the bars on his cage. An 8 by 10 without bars would be a dream for some New Yorkers. An 8 by 10 with them, on the other hand...

He sketched them in blue, in pink, in grey, spent hours caressing them with long, bony fingers, even (accidentally) banged his head into them once in an effort to understand why he hated them so much.

His study lasted six months, eleven days and twenty three hours and resulted in the eloquent conclusion I don’t freaking know.

Was it that they kept him in or that they kept others out? Was it that he could get through them, but it was pointless because there were people on the other side who would put him right back where he started? Or was it simply the oppressive, metallic colour?

He wished his traitorous brain had never thought up the question.

He thought about the bars on his cage because he didn’t want to think about how he couldn’t move even when there weren’t bars in front of him.

Also, there was an empty bottle of Bordeaux sitting next to him that he really wished could be replaced by the woman who had left it there.