Life Part II, White Collar
Sep. 17th, 2010 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronicasleepsTitle: Life (Breathing Through Your Body)Part II
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
veronicasleeps
Rating: R for the series, PG-15 for this part.
Characters/Pairings: Neal/Peter/Elizabeth, Mozzie, Kate
Word count: 1,800
Warnings/Spoilers: AU
Series Summary: At the first art show that the artist Neal Caffrey visits after his release from prison, he meets a married couple that can almost make him forget about his recent past. Then it catches up to him.
In this part: Elizabeth and Peter are trying to find out what happened. So is Mozzie.
Notes: This is Part II of Life, Part I can be found here. Feedback is very, very much appreciated. Really.
+
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ~William Shakespeare
+
The interrogation rooms at the Precinct are as gray and lifeless as your average prison cell, Neal observes, and he feels as if he fits right in, just as achromatic, and terribly numb.
Even Mozzie, his friend and occasional lawyer, with his perpetual strangeness that normally never fails to amuse Neal, can't make him smile today. Especially not with the things he says.
"Tell me that you didn't kill Kate."
Shocked, Neal just stares at Mozzie. "I- What?" If not even Moz' believes in his innocence, and Mozzie is the person who knows him best, then he'll end up in prison again for sure. "How can you even think that?"
"You know what I think of Kate, and her actions. I'd understand if you killed her, but this kind of stupidity isn't your style at all." There's the kind of hard edged expression on his face that makes him look less like a strange librarian, and more like the good lawyer he can be. If the situation wasn't so dire, Neal would have laughed. Instead, he frowns.
"You shouldn't speak ill of the dead." It's just a whisper, Neal still isn't sure if he wants to believe that Kate is dead and not just pulling the biggest Con of all on them. Saying it out loud would only mean admitting that it's true.
Mozzie just shakes his head, exasperated. Then he puts his briefcase on the table that Neal is chained to and clears his throat. "Kate was killed last night around two o'clock. Your Alibi?"
Neal blushes. There are things that even Mozzie doesn't have to know.
"I was at June's. And I had... company." Neal had tried not to think about what they must have thought seeing him get arrested like that. He feels ashamed even though he is innocent, and he is disappointed. At some point during that night he had decided he wanted to try to keep them in his life in some way, even if just as friends, because of the comfort they'd brought, but he thinks it's unlikely that they'll want anything to do with him, now that they know that he's been to prison.
Moz' looks at Neal as if he doesn't believe him.
"What?" Neal asks. "I can't have people over?"
+
"Diana, old friend!" Peter is on the phone, still at Neal's apartment, talking to an old colleague of his, occasionally throwing glances over at Elizabeth who is on the couch, fretting and getting drunk on the pinot noir. It's a shock to see the man one has spent the night with arrested like that. If Peter wasn't trying to find out what exactly had just happened, he'd gladly join his wife and get drunk too.
Instead he's calling FBI headquarters, and is planning to use federal resources for a private matter.
"Yes, that's right. Caffrey. Double 'f', a 'y' at the end. You got it?" It's times like these, that having worked at the FBI comes in handy. He frowns at whatever the person on the other side is saying.
"Okay. Send it to my email address. You know I wouldn't do this usually." And he wouldn't. He hasn't once in the entire six years he's been out of the Bureau. "Yeah. It's personal. He's a... friend. In a way."
It's true, Peter realizes. If nothing else, Neal Caffrey is a friend after the night they'd shared. And if the comfortableness and familiarity this morning hadn't been a fluke, Neal had the potential to become so much more.
Peter puts the earpiece down on the charger, and goes to sit by Elizabeth, just staring at the wineglasses still on the floor in front of the armchair where they'd seduced Neal the night before, where they'd kissed him and wrapped themselves around him.
"He's in the system." He says it quietly. It doesn't sound condemning, just exhausted, and Elizabeth leans against him softly, trying to give him comfort. "He's just been released from prison. They put him away for art theft."
He rubs at his eyes, and takes the glass out of her hand and refills it with the rest from the bottle. "It probably would have been me, who put him away, if it hadn't been..." Fowler, the bullet wound, all of it and nothing. Peter isn't sure of much these days, he hasn't thought about these things in a very long time.
He downs the glass of wine quickly, as if trying to stop his muddled thoughts or maybe just the words, but it doesn't help. He can't seem to stop talking. This hits too close to home. "He's supposed to have stolen a music box made from gold. But Jones says it doesn't fit his profile at all. Especially letting himself be caught."
Elizabeth looks at Peter, all dark eyes and sad smile, and she kisses him softly on the lips. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."
He hugs her to him and they sit on Neal's couch in Neal's apartment and know exactly that they can't forget the young man from the night before very easily.
The thought of him in prison lies heavy on their minds.
+
"it's not so much a 'can't'", Mozzie says, "it's just that statistically speaking it's rather unbelievable. After all, the number of people you've actually spoken to for more than a minute since your return last month lies at what? 3?"
Mozzie doesn't say things like these to be cruel, Neal knows that, but it still hurts. He's been trying, he really is, but it's not easy. He feels as though some big part of him, the part that appreciated small talk and art work and the smell of good wine has dried out from misuse in prison. Like an open tube of water paint, the insides dry and flaky.
But yesterday, with Elizabeth and Peter, he had felt alive again, and he misses that feeling. This is no time for pining after them, though. He realizes that.
It's no time for lies and deception either.
"I spent last night with two people I met at the exhibition." He doesn't look Mozzie in the eye. He doesn't need to see surprise on his face, or worse things. "Elizabeth and Peter."
"I don't know their last names, but they're married."
It's quiet for a long moment, and Neal almost thinks Mozzie has left, but then there's a loudly indrawn breath. "Okay." Mozzie's voice is level.
"I can work with that. They should be on the guest list."
Neal runs a hand through his hair, then over his face, pressing his fingertips deeply against his temples.
"I- Moz." He bites his lips, and knows that Mozzie will realize how serious this is for him, how much it effects him, emotionally, but he isn't in the right mind to hide his tells. "I know you... disapprove of this, but can do something for me?"
There's no answer, and that's answer enough to Neal.
"When you meet them," and he knows that Mozzie will, he's much to curious for his own sake, after all, "tell them I'm sorry about this. Tell them I really enjoyed our time."
Mozzie leaves without a word, but Neal is sure he will do as he's asked him. The brush of his hand against Neal's shoulder is an isle of warmth in the cold wasteland of his day.
+
They should be feeling uncomfortable in Neal's apartment, at least without him there, Elizabeth muses, but everything in here feels so much like him that that's impossible.
She looks at Peter who is entrenched in paperwork, files about Neal printed out by the rather old printer connected to the computer that Peter had located under a mountain of sketchbooks.
She's going through the sketches and is overwhelmed by what she finds. "Peter?" she calls, "look, is that Kate?"
There's hundreds of picture's of her, smiling and laughing, flirting and dancing and every single one of them shows the progress of Neal falling in love with her.
Peter stands behind Elizabeth, curling an arm around her, and looks at the sketches with a small frown on his face. He compares a grainy surveillance picture with the sketches and nods. "Yes, that's her."
Elizabeth leans back in his arms, she feels like crying a little bit, but she won't. Not right know. "How can anyone think he killed her?" It's incomprehensible to her, this level of feeling doesn't lead to murder.
"I don't know, darling. But I don't know the entire story yet. It's confusing, the records are partially lost, some leads never were followed." He buries his head between her neck and her shoulder. He kisses her skin, and she smiles, a little bit.
"Something doesn't feel right about this. Not at all."
There's a sound from the door to the apartment, and it makes Peter straighten up and turn to the door with mistrust in his eyes, covering Elizabeth instinctively with his body.
A key turns in the lock and the door opens. A strange looking man stands in the door way, frowning at them from behind his thick glasses.
"Who are you?" Both Peter and the man in the doorway never look away from each other. Neither of them willing to back down.
Elizabeth just knows that her husband would draw a gun if he still had one, and in that moment she is glad that he doesn't have one anymore. She places a hand at the small of his back to sooth him. "He's got a key, Peter." She says, softly.
Peter doesn't turn around to face her. "That doesn't mean he's trustworthy."
The man squints at them, and sniffs a little when he takes in Peter. He doesn't want them here, that much is clear.
"No, Suit." he says, saying suit in way that makes it an insult, without question. "What it does mean is that I belong here, and you don't." His eyes flicker from Peter to her and back. "So what are doing at Neal's place?"
Elizabeth knows that Peter won't be able to trust the guy, so she will have to.
"I'm Elizabeth, this is my husband Peter." She walks around the sofa and stands next to Peter, even though he stiffens, not shielding her from a perceived threat makes him nervous.
She doesn't react to that, but presses her hand more strongly against Peter's back in support. It's gonna be alright, says that touch, trust me.
She looks the other man square in the eye. "We're trying to find out who killed Kate."
Author:
veronicasleeps Rating: R for the series, PG-15 for this part.
Characters/Pairings: Neal/Peter/Elizabeth, Mozzie, Kate
Word count: 1,800
Warnings/Spoilers: AU
Series Summary: At the first art show that the artist Neal Caffrey visits after his release from prison, he meets a married couple that can almost make him forget about his recent past. Then it catches up to him.
In this part: Elizabeth and Peter are trying to find out what happened. So is Mozzie.
Notes: This is Part II of Life, Part I can be found here. Feedback is very, very much appreciated. Really.
+
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ~William Shakespeare
+
The interrogation rooms at the Precinct are as gray and lifeless as your average prison cell, Neal observes, and he feels as if he fits right in, just as achromatic, and terribly numb.
Even Mozzie, his friend and occasional lawyer, with his perpetual strangeness that normally never fails to amuse Neal, can't make him smile today. Especially not with the things he says.
"Tell me that you didn't kill Kate."
Shocked, Neal just stares at Mozzie. "I- What?" If not even Moz' believes in his innocence, and Mozzie is the person who knows him best, then he'll end up in prison again for sure. "How can you even think that?"
"You know what I think of Kate, and her actions. I'd understand if you killed her, but this kind of stupidity isn't your style at all." There's the kind of hard edged expression on his face that makes him look less like a strange librarian, and more like the good lawyer he can be. If the situation wasn't so dire, Neal would have laughed. Instead, he frowns.
"You shouldn't speak ill of the dead." It's just a whisper, Neal still isn't sure if he wants to believe that Kate is dead and not just pulling the biggest Con of all on them. Saying it out loud would only mean admitting that it's true.
Mozzie just shakes his head, exasperated. Then he puts his briefcase on the table that Neal is chained to and clears his throat. "Kate was killed last night around two o'clock. Your Alibi?"
Neal blushes. There are things that even Mozzie doesn't have to know.
"I was at June's. And I had... company." Neal had tried not to think about what they must have thought seeing him get arrested like that. He feels ashamed even though he is innocent, and he is disappointed. At some point during that night he had decided he wanted to try to keep them in his life in some way, even if just as friends, because of the comfort they'd brought, but he thinks it's unlikely that they'll want anything to do with him, now that they know that he's been to prison.
Moz' looks at Neal as if he doesn't believe him.
"What?" Neal asks. "I can't have people over?"
+
"Diana, old friend!" Peter is on the phone, still at Neal's apartment, talking to an old colleague of his, occasionally throwing glances over at Elizabeth who is on the couch, fretting and getting drunk on the pinot noir. It's a shock to see the man one has spent the night with arrested like that. If Peter wasn't trying to find out what exactly had just happened, he'd gladly join his wife and get drunk too.
Instead he's calling FBI headquarters, and is planning to use federal resources for a private matter.
"Yes, that's right. Caffrey. Double 'f', a 'y' at the end. You got it?" It's times like these, that having worked at the FBI comes in handy. He frowns at whatever the person on the other side is saying.
"Okay. Send it to my email address. You know I wouldn't do this usually." And he wouldn't. He hasn't once in the entire six years he's been out of the Bureau. "Yeah. It's personal. He's a... friend. In a way."
It's true, Peter realizes. If nothing else, Neal Caffrey is a friend after the night they'd shared. And if the comfortableness and familiarity this morning hadn't been a fluke, Neal had the potential to become so much more.
Peter puts the earpiece down on the charger, and goes to sit by Elizabeth, just staring at the wineglasses still on the floor in front of the armchair where they'd seduced Neal the night before, where they'd kissed him and wrapped themselves around him.
"He's in the system." He says it quietly. It doesn't sound condemning, just exhausted, and Elizabeth leans against him softly, trying to give him comfort. "He's just been released from prison. They put him away for art theft."
He rubs at his eyes, and takes the glass out of her hand and refills it with the rest from the bottle. "It probably would have been me, who put him away, if it hadn't been..." Fowler, the bullet wound, all of it and nothing. Peter isn't sure of much these days, he hasn't thought about these things in a very long time.
He downs the glass of wine quickly, as if trying to stop his muddled thoughts or maybe just the words, but it doesn't help. He can't seem to stop talking. This hits too close to home. "He's supposed to have stolen a music box made from gold. But Jones says it doesn't fit his profile at all. Especially letting himself be caught."
Elizabeth looks at Peter, all dark eyes and sad smile, and she kisses him softly on the lips. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."
He hugs her to him and they sit on Neal's couch in Neal's apartment and know exactly that they can't forget the young man from the night before very easily.
The thought of him in prison lies heavy on their minds.
+
"it's not so much a 'can't'", Mozzie says, "it's just that statistically speaking it's rather unbelievable. After all, the number of people you've actually spoken to for more than a minute since your return last month lies at what? 3?"
Mozzie doesn't say things like these to be cruel, Neal knows that, but it still hurts. He's been trying, he really is, but it's not easy. He feels as though some big part of him, the part that appreciated small talk and art work and the smell of good wine has dried out from misuse in prison. Like an open tube of water paint, the insides dry and flaky.
But yesterday, with Elizabeth and Peter, he had felt alive again, and he misses that feeling. This is no time for pining after them, though. He realizes that.
It's no time for lies and deception either.
"I spent last night with two people I met at the exhibition." He doesn't look Mozzie in the eye. He doesn't need to see surprise on his face, or worse things. "Elizabeth and Peter."
"I don't know their last names, but they're married."
It's quiet for a long moment, and Neal almost thinks Mozzie has left, but then there's a loudly indrawn breath. "Okay." Mozzie's voice is level.
"I can work with that. They should be on the guest list."
Neal runs a hand through his hair, then over his face, pressing his fingertips deeply against his temples.
"I- Moz." He bites his lips, and knows that Mozzie will realize how serious this is for him, how much it effects him, emotionally, but he isn't in the right mind to hide his tells. "I know you... disapprove of this, but can do something for me?"
There's no answer, and that's answer enough to Neal.
"When you meet them," and he knows that Mozzie will, he's much to curious for his own sake, after all, "tell them I'm sorry about this. Tell them I really enjoyed our time."
Mozzie leaves without a word, but Neal is sure he will do as he's asked him. The brush of his hand against Neal's shoulder is an isle of warmth in the cold wasteland of his day.
+
They should be feeling uncomfortable in Neal's apartment, at least without him there, Elizabeth muses, but everything in here feels so much like him that that's impossible.
She looks at Peter who is entrenched in paperwork, files about Neal printed out by the rather old printer connected to the computer that Peter had located under a mountain of sketchbooks.
She's going through the sketches and is overwhelmed by what she finds. "Peter?" she calls, "look, is that Kate?"
There's hundreds of picture's of her, smiling and laughing, flirting and dancing and every single one of them shows the progress of Neal falling in love with her.
Peter stands behind Elizabeth, curling an arm around her, and looks at the sketches with a small frown on his face. He compares a grainy surveillance picture with the sketches and nods. "Yes, that's her."
Elizabeth leans back in his arms, she feels like crying a little bit, but she won't. Not right know. "How can anyone think he killed her?" It's incomprehensible to her, this level of feeling doesn't lead to murder.
"I don't know, darling. But I don't know the entire story yet. It's confusing, the records are partially lost, some leads never were followed." He buries his head between her neck and her shoulder. He kisses her skin, and she smiles, a little bit.
"Something doesn't feel right about this. Not at all."
There's a sound from the door to the apartment, and it makes Peter straighten up and turn to the door with mistrust in his eyes, covering Elizabeth instinctively with his body.
A key turns in the lock and the door opens. A strange looking man stands in the door way, frowning at them from behind his thick glasses.
"Who are you?" Both Peter and the man in the doorway never look away from each other. Neither of them willing to back down.
Elizabeth just knows that her husband would draw a gun if he still had one, and in that moment she is glad that he doesn't have one anymore. She places a hand at the small of his back to sooth him. "He's got a key, Peter." She says, softly.
Peter doesn't turn around to face her. "That doesn't mean he's trustworthy."
The man squints at them, and sniffs a little when he takes in Peter. He doesn't want them here, that much is clear.
"No, Suit." he says, saying suit in way that makes it an insult, without question. "What it does mean is that I belong here, and you don't." His eyes flicker from Peter to her and back. "So what are doing at Neal's place?"
Elizabeth knows that Peter won't be able to trust the guy, so she will have to.
"I'm Elizabeth, this is my husband Peter." She walks around the sofa and stands next to Peter, even though he stiffens, not shielding her from a perceived threat makes him nervous.
She doesn't react to that, but presses her hand more strongly against Peter's back in support. It's gonna be alright, says that touch, trust me.
She looks the other man square in the eye. "We're trying to find out who killed Kate."
