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cookiegirlTitle: Nature of the Chase
Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elrhiarhodan
Author:cookielaura
Wordcount: 16,145 (part 2 = 7,940)
Characters/Pairings: Neal, Peter, Mozzie, Elizabeth, Clinton, Kate, OMC, past Neal/Kate, Peter/El, pre-Peter/Neal, pre-Peter/El/Neal
Rating: Hard R
Contains: One curse word, brief violence, blood/injury, references to death, sexual content
Spoilers: 2x11
Betas:wise_old_crone and erinm_4600
Summary: Pre-series fantasy AU. Neal’s true nature means he has the ability to keep running from Peter forever – if he chooses to.
Notes: See PART ONE
Read PART ONE here
It was one a.m. and the apartment was quiet, save for the occasional shouts from the street outside, and the rise and fall of police sirens in the distance. Kate and Mozzie were asleep, and Neal stood in front of the full-length mirror in their living room for the fourth night running.
Ever since that evening on the beach a week ago, his mind had been spinning. He had thought he knew everything there was to know about shifting, had thought he’d tried out every form on the earth that was worth experiencing. As it turned out, he’d only scratched the surface.
And so he had started to experiment. On Sunday it had been a phoenix. His huge, curved wings had filled the small living area, the feathers glowing flame-red in the near-darkness, and shining with sudden golden fire whenever passing headlights washed over them. The shock of sudden invincibility had blazed through him, a dizzying sensation that spoke of eternity, of something akin to immortality. It had left him shaky and light-headed for hours after he changed back.
On Monday it had been a griffin. The body and back legs of a lion, the head, wings and front legs of an eagle, and a pure physical strength that Neal had never felt before. But the image staring back at him in the mirror was almost too strange to comprehend, and Neal felt his soul balking. He stayed barely three minutes in that form.
Tuesday was a winged horse, a chocolate brown Pegasus with skin that gleamed and wings that were too tall and broad to open fully in the apartment. It was powerful and beautiful, but in the back of his mind Neal knew it wasn’t quite what he wanted.
He wanted to try the unicorn.
----
A little over a month after leaving Austria, Peter was standing on the steps of Hertford House in London, taking shelter under the arched entranceway as he shook out the rain from his umbrella, and wishing Neal had gone to Berlin after all. The weather couldn’t be any worse there.
Caffrey better turn up, he thought, looking out over the street a few feet away as the rain sheeted down, bouncing off the tarmac like bullets. Another wasted trip would be annoying enough; a wasted trip that had been dogged by thunderous skies and unseasonably cold temperatures since the moment he stepped off the plane would be even worse.
He had to admit, he wasn’t sure Neal would be here. It was a gamble at best; at worst, it was pure guesswork. But as Elizabeth had reminded him last night over the phone, that would make it even more impressive when he turned out to be right. If he turned out to be right.
Caffrey had taken six statues from Innsbruck. Four had been fairly valuable; the other two, not so much. Those two were part of a set that had long been split between different owners, a South Tyrolean collection of sacral statues commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I and composed primarily of wood. They were worth comparatively little, and Peter couldn’t work out why Neal had stolen them; his best bet was that they had some personal value to either Neal himself, or whoever was paying Neal to do their bidding. And if that person wanted those statues, then it seemed logical he’d want the others in the set – the very two statues that had arrived at Hertford House three days ago, ready for tonight’s opening of a new exhibition in the building’s small museum.
It was just a hunch, so Peter had brought a pared-down team with him – two agents who hadn’t encountered Neal before and wouldn’t be recognized by him if they came into contact. They’d been staking out the museum for the past few days, waiting for Caffrey to make a move while the statues were in storage, but there had been no sign of him. Either Peter had been wrong, or Neal had been waiting until the party tonight to make his move. He fervently hoped it was the latter; he couldn’t justify staking out the museum indefinitely once the exhibition opened.
Peter straightened his jacket – a rented tux that fit surprisingly well – and prepared to enter the building. The party was in full swing, and Milton and Anderson were already inside, one stationed in each of the halls that the event was taking place in, doing their best to blend in. Peter had hung back, not wanting to scare Neal off, but if he was coming he would likely be inside by now. If they could all avoid being spotted by Caffrey, hopefully they could catch him in the act. After all, Peter reassured himself, Neal was unlikely to be expecting them this time.
----
Neal felt twitchy, restless and constrained, as if his well tailored suit was in fact two sizes too small. It was an unfamiliar feeling; normally when he started to feel hemmed in by his thoughts or his environment, he’d change into another form. But now, under the watchful gaze of his new ‘partner’, he was unable to shift, and his skin was starting to feel too tight.
He should have known better than to take a commission from someone who was rumored to be as demanding and controlling as Barber. After what Barber had termed the ‘debacle’ in Austria, where the FBI had been all over the scene, the man has insisted on closely supervising the second part of the job himself, to make sure he got the rest of his set. Neal had tried to reassure him that he hadn’t come close to being caught in Innsbruck, but without being able to reveal the exact mechanics of his escape, he hadn’t been able to convince him. And so Neal and Mozzie had a very unwelcome guest passenger on their current trip. If Barber didn’t have such a reputation for violence, Neal might have argued further about including him, but he was well aware that getting on Barber’s bad side would be unwise. He was, Neal thought as he felt Barber’s breath on the back of his neck, a little like Matthew Keller. Without the looks and the charm.
Still, this should be an easy job. The Wallace Collection, housed at Hertford House, was small and low-key, and security was limited to two guards and a couple cameras that had multiple blind spots. The more valuable items were behind alarmed glass cases, but the statues Barber wanted weren’t precious enough to warrant such measures – at least not to anyone but him, and by proxy, Neal. From where he and Barber stood, mostly concealed in one of the corridors off the main hall, he could see the statues stacked on the central, open display. All it would take was a distraction, and that was already taken care of: Mozzie was poised elsewhere in the building with a lighter, a piece of paper and a clear line of sight to the nearest smoke sensor.
‘Run it through for me one more time,’ Barber murmured into Neal’s ear, his mouth uncomfortably close to Neal’s skin and his voice hard and grating even at the low volume. Neal did his best not to shift away as he scanned the adjacent hall for possible complications.
‘My associate sets off the fire alarm. The building is evacuated. I access the display via the route we discussed, avoiding the cameras. I take the items, return to this corridor and we leave via the side door, the same way we entered, before the firefighters arrive.’ Then you pay me, and hopefully I never see you again. He glanced over his shoulder at Barber, noting his tight jaw and distrusting expression. Neal didn’t know why he wanted these statues – didn’t want to know, hadn’t even asked – but it was obvious that they meant a hell of a lot to Barber. Neal gave his best reassuring smile, before turning back to his surveillance.
‘Trust me, everything will go smooth…’ He trailed off.
Barber tensed up behind him. ‘What? What is it?’
Neal ignored him, his eyes focused on the short blond man in the cheap suit who was standing near the central display in the hall. He was an average-looking guy, with nothing out of the ordinary about him, but something didn’t feel right. He wasn’t with anyone, he wasn’t chatting or dancing, and the drink in his hand looked untouched. As Neal cast his mind back over the last few minutes, he realized that while everyone else in the hall had been admiring the art, this guy had given it only cursory glances. He was more interested in studying the crowd. Maybe he was just waiting for someone – his date, perhaps – but Neal couldn’t be sure.
‘Caffrey. What’s wrong?’ Barber’s voice was a growl now.
‘Nothing,’ Neal said quietly, trying to convince himself. ‘There’s a guy who looks out of place, but he’s probably just wishing he was at home watching TV instead of being dragged out to a museum by his girlfriend.’
Barber followed Neal’s gaze. ‘Blond guy, green tie?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You thinking cop? FBI?’
Neal shook his head. ‘I don’t see why the police would be here. And we’ve been too careful for the FBI to find us. I didn’t leave any trail. Even Peter isn’t that good.’
‘Who the hell is Peter?’
‘No-one. Don’t worry about it. Even if the guy is a cop, he can’t see us from there, and he’ll be evacuated with everyone else when the fire alarm goes off.’
‘I don’t like this,’ muttered Barber. ‘We should go to Plan B.’
Neal frowned. ‘We don’t have a Plan B.’
‘Of course we do,’ Barber said, and when Neal turned to look at him, his smile was like a snake’s. ‘I always have a Plan B.’
‘Are you going to share it with me?’ Neal asked, wishing once again that he was here alone. Barber’s hand went to his suit jacket, and smoothed it down, revealing a slight bulge.
‘Simple. We wait until the party’s over, and everyone’s gone – including our friend in the green tie. Then you encourage the guards to look the other way while you take what we came for. I don’t think they’ll say no once I lend you a little something to persuade them with.’
Neal didn’t have to ask what that something was. He set his jaw. ‘I’m not holding anyone at gunpoint. Plan A will work.’
Barber stared back at him for a few seconds. ‘Fine. But if that guy doesn’t follow everyone else out when the alarm goes off, then Plan B it is.’
Neal looked at his watch. ‘Well, we’ll find out in two and a half minutes.’ Somehow, he didn’t have high hopes. Between Barber’s unwelcome company, the gun he now knew was settled in Barber’s jacket and the growing feeling of discomfort in his own stomach, Neal was starting to wish he could walk away from this job completely.
----
He should walk away, he knew. He should stop gazing at his own naked figure in the mirror, watching as the cool air drew gooseflesh up across his arms. He should go back to the bedroom, crawl into bed next to Kate, wrap himself around her and forget about unicorns and magic and anything except her warm, soft body in his arms.
But he had to know what it felt like.
So he closed his eyes, and he thought of the unicorn.
He felt the familiar shift inside him, the split-second where his physical form seemed to slip away from him, melting into nothingness before reassembling into something new.
By the time he opened his eyes a moment later, everything had changed. Not just his body, but his soul. Time fell away, and he felt at once ancient and brand new. He could feel everything – each cell of his body was vibrating, singing, and each pump of hot blood through his arteries was like a wave of power and promise.
In the mirror was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. A smooth, sinewy body, so white that it seemed to glow. A long white mane and tail, spun through with silver, shimmering like moonlight on the ocean. And a shining horn that spiralled upwards to a sharp, perfect point.
Neal stared, unable to draw his eyes away from his new form. It was mesmerizing. Every part of him was exhilarated, and a thought came to him, clearer than any thought before.
I could stay like this forever.
The words knocked him out of his reverie, and he squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the image of his reflection. Without another second of hesitation, he shifted back to his human form, and found himself stumbling forward on shaking legs, his hands flying up in front of him to catch himself against the wall. His heart hammered against his chest, and his eyes burned with the afterimage of the white glow, casting spots across his vision.
Neal sucked in a breath, and then another, trying to calm his spinning mind. He’d almost lost himself. There, in the form of the unicorn, he’d felt his human qualities slide further away from him than ever before. The power was too strong, the magic was too hypnotic, the potential was too hard to resist. The urge to forget himself and to stay in the form had been overwhelming.
He pushed himself away from the wall and turned to the mirror, reassuring himself that he was still there, was still human. Kate was right, he realized. He should forget about unicorns.
----
‘Still no sign?’ Peter asked softly as he sidled up next to Anderson, who was pretending to admire a vase while keeping a close watch on the room beyond.
‘Nothing. No news from Milton?’
Peter shook his head, and tried not to wince at the sympathetic smile he received from the younger agent. He was getting the distinct impression that his small team thought they were on a wild goose chase. And maybe they were; the party had been going on for two hours, and neither of his agents had spotted anyone even vaguely resembling Caffrey. Peter had no choice but to check the venue himself for signs they might have missed, and hope he found something.
Of course… there was another possibility. Maybe his words to Neal last time they had spoken had sunk in deeper than Peter had expected. Maybe Neal had decided to draw back from his life of crime. It was a thought that had been hovering at the back of Peter’s mind all day, and he kept pushing it away. He wasn’t sure if he was ignoring it because he was afraid it was false, and he would end up having to put Caffrey away for a depressingly long time, or because he was afraid it was true. If it was true, if Neal had chosen to retire, then he would be safe, and the art world would be a little more secure, but the chase would be over. Nothing would be left but dead ends, unanswered questions, and a man he had almost known but never would. Peter would have lost, in every way.
He sighed and moved away from Anderson, winding his way through the crowd and towards the larger hall where he knew the statues in question were displayed, and where Milton had been keeping watch. He was just about to step over the threshold into the second hall, when the piercing shriek of an alarm shattered the air.
For a moment Peter thought it was a security alarm, and he swiftly stepped forward into the hall, eyes searching for the statues, expecting to see only an empty space where they should be. But he couldn’t get a clear eye-line, and as the room swarmed around him, voices rising in confusion and faces turning to panic, he realized it wasn’t a security breach – it was the fire alarm. Nevertheless, Peter was certain the source was the same. Caffrey.
Vaguely he heard the pleas from the museum staff for the public to make their way to the exits in a calm and orderly fashion, but he paid no attention. He barked questions into his comms, but his agents could see nothing suspicious. In front of him, the room was starting to clear, and he caught a glimpse of Milton, the only still figure, and the sculptures – exactly where they should be.
Peter narrowed his eyes, then snapped instructions to Milton and Anderson to evacuate along with the others and keep watch on the exits. If Neal was planning to steal the artworks when the hall was empty, then they’d have to ensure the hall did indeed look empty. Peter ducked back into the first hall and slipped behind the doorway, making sure he couldn’t be seen from the main hall. He waited as it emptied, Milton passing him without acknowledgement. The commotion was dissipating as the crowds flowed out behind him, but the fire alarm kept up its painfully loud screech.
‘Sir, we need you to exit the building,’ a young security guard said, his hand on Peter’s arm, pulling slightly as he tried to direct him out of the hall with the others. Both rooms were almost cleared. Peter shook him off, reaching for his pocket and flashing his FBI ID. The guard gave him a puzzled look, but Peter put his finger on his lips and nodded towards the exit, and after a moment of indecision the guard backed away, did a final sweep of the room and then headed out, leaving Peter alone.
Peter’s heart began to thud. This wasn’t a fire, he was sure of it: this was Caffrey’s doing. Neal could be just meters away from him right now, unaware that he was almost within Peter’s grasp. His limbs were tense, ready to spring into action, and he reached for his gun.
He edged slightly around the doorway, still keeping himself mostly hidden, and let his gaze sweep the exhibition hall. It was deserted.
Peter stayed perfectly still. It felt like the world had stopped around him, except for the alarm still echoing around the halls. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the slightest of movements from one of the corridors heading off the hall. He edged out a little further to get a better view, and leaned forward. There was a flash of dark clothing as a figure started to emerge from the corridor, and before Peter could step back –
– he locked eyes with Neal.
----
For a second, Neal froze. The sight of Peter was so unexpected, and the rush of emotions that came with it so intense – shock, fear, admiration, an inappropriate thrill – that Neal could do nothing but stare, a rabbit caught in the trap of Peter’s gaze. He realized it was the first time he and Peter had looked each other in the face since that day outside the bank.
Then Peter moved, his mouth starting to open and the hand holding his gun rising. The spell broke, and Neal turned and ran.
He heard Barber swearing as the man sprinted after him down the corridor, their footsteps clattering against the polished wooden floors, loud but not loud enough to drown out Peter’s shouts to stop. Neal felt panic rising in his throat, sharp and unfamiliar. He always had an escape route, always had a way to shift out of trouble, but with Barber on his heels he was almost as helpless as any other man on the run. His only chance was to be faster and smarter than Peter, and he wasn’t completely sure he was either.
Neal didn’t look back, but he could tell Peter was keeping pace with them; if anything his footsteps sounded nearer now than they had done a moment ago. He skidded around the corner of the corridor, his leather shoes slipping dangerously on the waxed wood, and gave thanks that the building was small and they would be out soon, into the night and away from the bright museum lights.
They wound their way through the final corridor, and burst through the side door, a little-used fire exit that brought them out into the narrow street near the rear of the building. After the warmth and brightness of the interior, it was a relief to be instantly wrapped in the dark anonymity of the night. Neal pulled in a shaking breath of cold air as the rain flooded down on them.
Barber slammed the door shut behind him. ‘Split up,’ he snapped, turning to the left, and racing away without a backwards glance at Neal.
Relief rushed through Neal. Peter’s footsteps were already almost at the door they’d just exited, but it no longer mattered. He was alone and unobserved, if only for a moment; he closed his eyes and let himself shift.
Seconds later the door was flung open and Peter ran out into the street. Neal watched him glance each way down the lane, glimpse Barber’s retreating back in the rain-masked glow of a streetlamp and sprint after him, shouting requests for back-up into his comms as he did so.
On his perch above the doorway, Neal took a moment to compose himself, sucking in as deep a breath as he could whilst in the form of a pigeon. The adrenaline surge had left him shaky, and he pulled his soft gray wings around himself while the rain continued to fall. Once his fluttering heart had slowed, he took flight, following the faint echoes of Barber and Peter’s chase. He had to know the outcome; he had no doubt that if Barber was caught, he’d tell Peter anything and everything he knew about Neal in return for his release.
It didn’t take long to find Barber, but Neal’s heart sank as he flew above him. The man didn’t know the poorly-lit back alleys of London well enough to navigate them on a rain-drenched night like this, and he was heading straight down a dead end. As Neal watched, Barber slowed to a stop, taking in the wall a few meters away from him, the tall buildings on each side, and the utter lack of escape routes. Peter was almost at the entrance of the street, and there was no time to turn back. Neal glanced around for a way to help his accomplice, but there was none.
And then, as he hovered in the air, watching Barber turn to face the alley’s entrance, a shaft of light from a window above caught the expression on Barber’s face, and Neal’s blood ran cold.
He squawked desperately as Peter entered the mouth of the alleyway, but the screech of a bird meant nothing to Peter, just another noise in the night among the hammering of raindrops and the nearby traffic.
And neither Neal nor Peter had time to do anything more before Barber raised his gun and pulled the trigger.
The night cracked apart with the sound of the shot. Peter’s body crumpled to the ground, his face pale and his shirt a stark splash of white against the dark ground and the black tuxedo. As Neal watched, stunned, the shirt began to flood with red.
Distantly, Neal registered Barber fleeing the alleyway, the sound of his footsteps indecipherable through the ringing in Neal’s ears. A gunshot was loud for a human; as a pigeon, it seemed to shatter Neal’s whole body. His small frame rocked back and forth in the air, then fluttered haphazardly to the ground, his wings shaking. But his eyes were glued on Peter, and the front of his shirt that was now almost entirely dyed a dark, horrifying red.
As Neal came to a shuddering stop on the ground, he heard Peter groan, and then gasp some words into his comms: ‘Officer down’, and their location.
Neal hesitated. He should go, fly away back to the hotel, back to Mozzie, out of harm’s way. Peter’s back-up would be there soon, and they would help. But Peter didn’t look like he could wait, and Neal somehow knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if their situations were reversed, Peter wouldn’t leave him.
Peter’s eyes were closed, so Neal pulled himself together and shifted to his human form, knowing even as he transformed that at any moment Peter’s fellow agents could come around the corner and see him standing over Peter’s fallen body. But that barely mattered.
He sank to his knees next to Peter, and pressed both hands to the bullet wound in Peter’s stomach, the blood hot and sticky on his fingers. Beneath his touch, Peter’s body was shaking.
‘Peter? Peter!’ Neal’s voice sounded small to his own ears. ‘You’re okay. You’re fine. Help’s coming. Hang on.’
At the sound of Neal’s voice, Peter’s eyes flickered open. He frowned, and Neal wondered briefly, ridiculously, if he was perturbed to be being helped by a criminal. But then Peter’s face screwed up further, and Neal could only see pain and fear. And something else, something desperate and devastated in Peter’s eyes that told him Peter thought – maybe even knew – that he was dying.
----
Peter hoped it would be Clinton who told Elizabeth. He hoped he’d be sweet, and gentle, and at the same time he knew it wouldn’t make any difference, because El would be torn to pieces no matter how she was told.
It was her worst nightmare, and Peter had told her it would never happen, sworn to her. He’d believed it too. Other agents got killed in the line of duty. But not Peter Burke.
Peter Burke wasn’t the sort of man who died in a pool of blood in a dark alley, alone and scared. He was the sort of man who died in his bed, aged ninety-five with his wife by his side.
And yet. Here he was. The stony ground cold and hard against his back, his leg folded awkwardly under him, his stomach surging with pain, his whole body feeling like a sledgehammer had hit it. Someone had once told him that being shot didn’t really hurt, at least not at first. The adrenaline kept the body from registering the pain.
That person had been wrong.
Milton and Anderson would have called for an ambulance by now. They’d be here themselves in minutes, if they could find their way through the maze of London streets. But Peter could feel himself slipping already.
And then his stomach exploded with agonizing pressure, ripping a dry gasp from his throat, and there was a voice, familiar and unfamiliar at once, pushing through his consciousness and grounding him back in his body.
He forced his eyes open. It took a moment for them to focus as he squinted through the rain. Then Neal Caffrey’s face came into his vision. And for the first time, he saw what Neal Caffrey looked like when he was truly afraid.
They both knew how this was going to end.
‘You’re fine,’ Neal said. ‘You’re okay. It’s gonna take more than this to take the famous Agent Burke down.’
Peter felt tears spring to his eyes. He swallowed against the lump in his throat, forcing himself to find his voice.
‘My… wife,’ he managed. ‘You…tell her…’
‘I’m not telling her anything,’ Neal interrupted. ‘You’re fine. You’re –’ He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he lifted his hand from Peter’s stomach, looked down, and swore. He bit his lip, and something seemed to be warring within him for a moment.
Then he told Peter to close his eyes.
Peter ignored him, and started to speak again. But his words failed him when he saw Neal reach into his pocket and bring out a Swiss army knife. He stared, confusion quickly followed by horror at the thought that Neal might try to dig the bullet out by himself.
But Neal didn’t bring the knife to Peter’s skin. He shoved his own sleeve up, and brought it to his own arm. And sliced through the skin.
Peter watched the blood drip down, transfixed. Then his vision went white.
At first, Peter thought he’d died. But the white glow filling his gaze wasn’t heavenly light. It was moving. It was – Peter blinked rapidly. Standing next to him, where Neal had been, was a horse. A white horse, large and lean, its skin seeming to reflect every particle of light available, and repelling the falling rain so that it formed a hazy cloud around the horse’s body, like a halo. Peter’s gaze travelled upwards to its head, its huge, dark eyes and its slender, twisting horn.
He was hallucinating. Of course.
The horse – the unicorn – raised its foreleg over Peter’s stomach. The foreleg had a clean cut across it, and from it flowed a shining silver river of blood that fell onto Peter’s sodden shirt and soaked through to his wound.
Peter had never felt a sensation like it. It was a bright fire spreading through his skin and into his body, sharp and hot but beautiful, purifying him, knitting him back together, ridding him of pain until he was filled with light. It lasted for only a few seconds, during which Peter stared into the unicorn’s eyes, transfixed, and the unicorn stared back.
Then it was over, and the air shifted, the glow dissipated, the rain fell straight to the ground again and Neal Caffrey was looking back at him.
‘You –’ Peter started, and was surprised to find his voice strong and steady, not the painful gasp it had been before. He pushed himself to a sitting position and yanked up his shirt, looking in wonder and overwhelming relief at the smooth, unblemished skin. He ran his fingers across it, pressed down where the bullet had torn through him, but there was no sign of it: he was whole.
He looked back at Neal, suddenly completely sure he hadn’t hallucinated anything. ‘You. You’re magic. You’re…’ He paused. ‘You’re a unicorn?’
Neal looked a little pale, and his suit was slightly ruffled, but he laughed carelessly. ‘You hit your head Peter. You’ve been seeing things. You should get that checked out when you get home. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ He started to get to his feet, but Peter reached out and snagged a hand around his wrist.
‘You’re magic,’ Peter said again, and it wasn’t a question any more. ‘You healed me.’ He bunched up his reddened shirt in his hand and held it up in front of Neal. ‘I was bleeding. You healed me.’ He was shocked at how certain he was of this utter impossibility.
Neal frowned, glancing anxiously at the mouth of the alley and back again. ‘Can we have this conversation another time?’ he said, urgency growing in his voice as he tried to yank his hand out of Peter’s grip. ‘I have places to be.’
As if on cue, heavy footsteps sounded outside the alleyway, and Peter heard Milton shouting. Without thinking, he let go of Neal’s wrist. He glanced around, looking for an escape route for Neal without quite registering what he was doing. But Neal had nowhere to go; he was trapped, whether Peter wanted him to be or not.
Peter turned back to Neal, but instead of the man kneeling next to him, he saw only a flash of feathers, and a pair of wings beating the air. He fell back in shock, watching mutely as the large, golden feathered owl spread out his wings and swept up into the dark sky. It hovered for a moment over the alley as the other agents arrived, and then soared away.
----
Neal flew and flew. Beneath his wings the lights of the city shone, whites and yellows and blues blurring together through the rain. The whole of London was spread out under him, his for the taking, but there was nowhere he wanted to go. He couldn’t face returning to the hotel, fielding questions from Mozzie and angry incriminations from Barber.
Instinctively he sought out the darker areas of the city, and found himself flying over Hyde Park, dipping low and sweeping through the avenues of trees. Beyond the park lay Kensington Gardens, acres of lawns and flowerbeds laid out before the palace, lit by the moonlight reflecting off the lake. Neal flew slower as the rain began to abate, and he eventually alighted on the shoulder of the Peter Pan statue in the midst of the gardens.
He had admired the statue in photographs before – The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, cast in bronze and standing atop a tree trunk while squirrels, rabbits and mice climbed up to him. It had seemed beautiful then, but now as Neal saw it up close, its magic seemed to ebb away. Now it was just a lost boy, caught between worlds, never truly belonging anywhere, standing alone while the animals tried to reach him but never did.
Neal dove gently down from the statue and approached the lake nearby, standing on the shore and staring at his reflection in the water, so foreign to what he normally saw in the mirror. It was distorted with the ripples of the last raindrops as they fell gently on the already swollen lake, but Neal continued to watch the disrupted image of the owl. It was strangely comforting to see the turmoil and whirling emotions inside him reflected by the shifting image on the lake’s surface.
Neal couldn’t quite believe what he had done. He had never purposefully revealed himself to anyone before. Kate had known from the moment she saw him, and Mozzie had found out by accident, walking in on him mid-shift one evening when Neal had thought he was staying overnight at a safe-house. Neal had never thought he would take the risk of voluntarily showing his nature to someone else; he would never have imagined trusting someone that much. But watching Peter bleed out, thinking of Elizabeth becoming a widow – it had been impossible to turn away. He’d barely even thought about his promise to Kate never to use his power.
And now Peter knew. He had seen it with his own eyes, and his blood-drenched shirt was all the evidence he would need to convince himself that he hadn’t imagined it. Neal could barely believe he had taken the risk of transforming – not just in front of the agent, but also to a form he knew was dangerously hypnotic. He could have lost himself amidst the overwhelming surge of power that he felt when his blood flowed from him. He might have forgotten his human form, forgotten the need for secrecy and concealment, and bounded out into the night, seduced by the magic.
He hadn’t though. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Peter had brought him back. The whole time he had been healing him, Peter’s eyes had never left his, his gaze steady and grounding. It had been stronger than the pull of the unicorn; it had reminded him who he was.
What would Peter do though? Would he tell others? There was no real reason why he should keep Neal’s secret; Neal was a criminal, someone who needed to be contained, and it was Peter’s job to do so. Even now, he could be sitting down and plotting a way to force Neal to reveal himself, thinking of a way to capture him. Neal didn’t believe Peter was the sort of man who would want him subjected to tests and research, but experience had taught him you could never really know someone else. And regardless, Peter was definitely the sort of man who believed those who broke the law should be caught and imprisoned.
That wasn’t what was eating at Neal the most though. He knew he should be concerned about exposure, but what was hurting him far more, what was causing a deep, empty ache in his stomach, was the thought of what Peter would think of him. Neal hated the thought that Peter would look at him and see a freak, an aberration contrary to all the laws of nature.
The sense of loss overtook him for a moment, and he stumbled back from the lake, taking flight once again in an effort to clear his mind. He would never again be able to chat light-heartedly to Peter on the phone; he would never be able to visit the Burkes’ as a cat and curl up in their warm, safe home next to Elizabeth. They would never have loved him, of course, could never have been his, but before they knew, the fantasy could remain.
Now it was gone. How could anyone know the truth about him and not be scared or repelled? His mother had always told him people would seek to destroy him if they found out, or to use him for their own ends.
Kate was the only one who could ever really want him; she had been his only chance to have someone who knew his true self and still wanted him in their life. He knew that; she’d told him herself.
----
Kate stood in the unlit bedroom of their apartment with her back to Neal, staring out the window. The bright lights of New York City at night turned her into a silhouette, but Neal could tell from the tense way she stood and the way she had wrapped her arms tightly around herself that she was still angry and hurt.
‘Pizza’s getting cold,’ he tried, shifting uncomfortably in the doorway. She didn’t reply. ‘Kate –’ he started again, and she turned around, the hard expression on her face stopping him in his tracks. She was mostly in shadow, but he could see the tight line of her jaw, the defiant raise of her chin, the way her eyes were narrowed.
‘You really thought you could con me?’ she asked. ‘You thought some heist with Alex – some trinket – was worth trying to con me over?’
‘It’s a music box,’ he corrected automatically. ‘And no – I didn’t – I just didn’t think –’
Neal was lost. It was so involuntary, the instinct to deceive, to mislead, to hide, that he hadn’t even considered telling Kate the truth about why he wanted to head to Europe.
‘I’m the person you don’t have to pull this sort of crap with,’ Kate said, quietly, and Neal could hear the tremor in her voice. But then she shook her head, and when she spoke again her words were harder. ‘And Alex? She doesn’t even know who you are. She doesn’t know what you are.’
‘She’s just a friend. We’re only –’
‘No. She’s not your friend. She doesn’t understand you. And even if she knew the truth about you… she’s not one of us. She could never really accept you, not like I do. Nobody will ever love you the way I do.’
Kate stepped away from the window and reached down. Neal followed her movement and saw her take the handle of the small suitcase he hadn’t noticed before. His breath caught in his chest.
‘You’re leaving?’
She dragged the suitcase along the floor, until she was almost in line with Neal. As she got closer, he noticed the silvery tracks that had made their way down her cheeks. Dried tears.
‘Please –’ he said, the word sticking in his throat. ‘Please, Kate –’
‘Nobody will ever know you like I do,’ she repeated, and slipped past him.
----
‘You’re doing it again,’ Elizabeth said with a smile as she joined Peter at the table in their yard. She put a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.
Peter spread butter on his croissant to give him something to do with his hands. ‘Doing what?’ he asked innocently, avoiding El’s eyes.
She laughed. ‘Studying every bird that comes near our yard,’ she said, and Peter couldn’t help but grin back at her, warmed by the fondness in her voice and endlessly amazed that she had believed his ridiculous tale almost without question. He’d been back in Brooklyn for five days now and after El had recovered from the shock of hearing he’d been shot, she’d been happy to discuss all his weird and wonderful theories about Neal Caffrey. And she was right – he could no longer relax and eat breakfast in his back yard without studying every animal and wondering if it was Caffrey. He felt like he was going a little crazy, but El was remarkably patient.
‘What about him?’ El asked, pointing at a grey squirrel that had appeared on their back fence. ‘He looks like he could be a dashing young criminal in disguise.’ She sipped her coffee and raised her eyebrows at Peter, her eyes sparkling.
‘Are you mocking me?’ Peter asked mildly. He turned to look at the squirrel. It cocked its head slightly to the side, and then jumped down from the fence and took a couple of steps towards the table.
‘See. It likes you,’ El teased. ‘Must be Neal.’
‘It probably wants my croissant,’ Peter muttered, but he leaned forward, squinting at the squirrel. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see a rift in the fur on its left foreleg – a cut that was still healing, perhaps. Or maybe it was just his imagination.
He pushed back his chair and got up from the table, but the squirrel skittered backwards, spooked. Peter put his hands out, his palms raised upwards, doing his best to appear non-threatening, and the squirrel stopped, watching him carefully.
Peter took a careful step forward, and the squirrel took a corresponding step back. For a moment they stared at each other, and then Peter sat down on the ground, ignoring the fact that he was mussing up his suit pants.
‘Caffrey?’ he asked, feeling more than a little foolish.
The squirrel cocked its head to the side again, but otherwise didn’t move. Peter looked back at El for encouragement, but she was staring at the squirrel. He turned back.
‘Neal?’ he said. ‘If that’s you… Look, don’t worry, I’m not going to try and arrest you. I’m guessing I couldn’t contain you anyway. But I wanted to say…what you did for me in London. It was amazing. I didn’t have time to say thank you.’
The squirrel kept its eyes on Peter. It looked like it was listening to him, but of course it could just be waiting for him to feed him some of his croissant. Peter carried on regardless.
‘And Neal, I can’t even pretend to understand what happened or what you can do. But I’ve been thinking. And researching.’ He took a deep breath. What he was about to suggest – to a squirrel, no less – was risky. But Neal was worth the risk.
‘I know you don’t want to turn yourself in. But, there’s precedent. If you were convicted of a crime, and an FBI agent was willing to take you into his custody… you could be released. On a tracking anklet, of sorts. Nothing that you couldn’t escape, I guess, and go flying off around the city. But in between flights, you could help me. It would be useful to have someone who knows the things you do in the White Collar unit. And then, when your sentence was over, you’d be free. Really free, not running from the law. You could have a normal life. And when you were with me… well, you wouldn’t have to hide yourself.’
Peter stopped, his heart beating hard, and he suddenly realized how much this meant to him, how much he wanted Neal to agree. How much he wanted to get to know this amazing man, and how much he wanted that man to have a life that wasn’t filled with danger and crime.
The squirrel still hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken his eyes away from Peter. There was silence then for a few moments, and then the squirrel turned and began to leave. Peter sighed. It was probably just a squirrel. The likelihood of Caffrey daring to come back to his house was low.
But just as the squirrel was about to climb the fence that ran around the yard, Elizabeth’s voice rang out.
‘Neal?’ she said, and the squirrel paused and looked back. Peter told himself it was just reacting to the noise, but his heart leapt anyway. He watched El smile at the squirrel, a special smile that she usually reserved only for Peter.
‘Thank you for saving my husband’s life,’ she said softly.
The squirrel watched her for a few seconds, then turned and scurried away. Peter pushed himself up off the ground, and wrapped his arms around his wife.
‘Are we crazy people?’ he asked her quietly. ‘Talking to squirrels?’
El shrugged and reached up to kiss him. ‘I don’t really care,’ she said with a smile.
----
Neal had gone to say goodbye. To take one last look at the life he could never have. After that, he’d been planning on leaving. Leaving New York, maybe even leaving the States. Continuing to search for Kate, or starting to seek out another of his kind, even if he had to scour the whole world.
But it hadn’t been a goodbye at all. Peter had recognized him, had seen through him with ease. He had sat on the ground and talked to him, eyes soft, smile genuine, without a hint of disgust. He hadn’t tried to trap him; he hadn’t looked down on him. He had been looking for a way to help him. And maybe – Neal could dare to hope – he had even been looking for a way to bring Neal into his life.
And Elizabeth had looked at him so kindly, spoken to him so sweetly, and smiled at him in a way that made his heart flutter. A way that made him believe there were people who could know what he was, and might still, one day, be able to love him.
Of course he wouldn’t take up Peter’s offer though, even if a tracking anklet could be shed as easily as paper handcuffs, and even if everything that Peter had said was right. The idea of turning himself in shouldn’t even be worth considering. He would never trade freedom for captivity, even if the captivity was just for show.
But as he sat, still in squirrel form, in an elm tree in Central Park, he had to admit, it was tempting.
----
Exactly a week had passed since Peter had spoken to the squirrel in his yard, and he had convinced himself that it hadn’t been Neal. That hadn’t stopped him looking at every passing animal for a hint of blue eyes or a mischievous grin. He didn’t think he’d ever stop looking for Neal.
‘Mail for you, hon,’ El said as she swept by him, landing a quick kiss on the top of his head and dropping an envelope on the table in front of him. He looked up from his breakfast and felt his pulse speed up. He recognized that handwriting.
He picked up the envelope and opened it carefully. He had long stopped bothering to look for fingerprints on Neal’s notes, but he nevertheless handled it almost reverently. Inside was a handmade greeting card, and the small watercolor scene on the front took Peter’s breath away. It was him, sitting in his back yard, talking to a small gray squirrel. He felt a grin spreading over his face.
He opened the card. Inside it read:
Peter,
Thank you for the offer.
I’ll think about it.
Xx
Artist:
elrhiarhodanAuthor:
cookielauraWordcount: 16,145 (part 2 = 7,940)
Characters/Pairings: Neal, Peter, Mozzie, Elizabeth, Clinton, Kate, OMC, past Neal/Kate, Peter/El, pre-Peter/Neal, pre-Peter/El/Neal
Rating: Hard R
Contains: One curse word, brief violence, blood/injury, references to death, sexual content
Spoilers: 2x11
Betas:
wise_old_crone and erinm_4600Summary: Pre-series fantasy AU. Neal’s true nature means he has the ability to keep running from Peter forever – if he chooses to.
Notes: See PART ONE
Read PART ONE here
It was one a.m. and the apartment was quiet, save for the occasional shouts from the street outside, and the rise and fall of police sirens in the distance. Kate and Mozzie were asleep, and Neal stood in front of the full-length mirror in their living room for the fourth night running.
Ever since that evening on the beach a week ago, his mind had been spinning. He had thought he knew everything there was to know about shifting, had thought he’d tried out every form on the earth that was worth experiencing. As it turned out, he’d only scratched the surface.
And so he had started to experiment. On Sunday it had been a phoenix. His huge, curved wings had filled the small living area, the feathers glowing flame-red in the near-darkness, and shining with sudden golden fire whenever passing headlights washed over them. The shock of sudden invincibility had blazed through him, a dizzying sensation that spoke of eternity, of something akin to immortality. It had left him shaky and light-headed for hours after he changed back.
On Monday it had been a griffin. The body and back legs of a lion, the head, wings and front legs of an eagle, and a pure physical strength that Neal had never felt before. But the image staring back at him in the mirror was almost too strange to comprehend, and Neal felt his soul balking. He stayed barely three minutes in that form.
Tuesday was a winged horse, a chocolate brown Pegasus with skin that gleamed and wings that were too tall and broad to open fully in the apartment. It was powerful and beautiful, but in the back of his mind Neal knew it wasn’t quite what he wanted.
He wanted to try the unicorn.
----
A little over a month after leaving Austria, Peter was standing on the steps of Hertford House in London, taking shelter under the arched entranceway as he shook out the rain from his umbrella, and wishing Neal had gone to Berlin after all. The weather couldn’t be any worse there.
Caffrey better turn up, he thought, looking out over the street a few feet away as the rain sheeted down, bouncing off the tarmac like bullets. Another wasted trip would be annoying enough; a wasted trip that had been dogged by thunderous skies and unseasonably cold temperatures since the moment he stepped off the plane would be even worse.
He had to admit, he wasn’t sure Neal would be here. It was a gamble at best; at worst, it was pure guesswork. But as Elizabeth had reminded him last night over the phone, that would make it even more impressive when he turned out to be right. If he turned out to be right.
Caffrey had taken six statues from Innsbruck. Four had been fairly valuable; the other two, not so much. Those two were part of a set that had long been split between different owners, a South Tyrolean collection of sacral statues commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I and composed primarily of wood. They were worth comparatively little, and Peter couldn’t work out why Neal had stolen them; his best bet was that they had some personal value to either Neal himself, or whoever was paying Neal to do their bidding. And if that person wanted those statues, then it seemed logical he’d want the others in the set – the very two statues that had arrived at Hertford House three days ago, ready for tonight’s opening of a new exhibition in the building’s small museum.
It was just a hunch, so Peter had brought a pared-down team with him – two agents who hadn’t encountered Neal before and wouldn’t be recognized by him if they came into contact. They’d been staking out the museum for the past few days, waiting for Caffrey to make a move while the statues were in storage, but there had been no sign of him. Either Peter had been wrong, or Neal had been waiting until the party tonight to make his move. He fervently hoped it was the latter; he couldn’t justify staking out the museum indefinitely once the exhibition opened.
Peter straightened his jacket – a rented tux that fit surprisingly well – and prepared to enter the building. The party was in full swing, and Milton and Anderson were already inside, one stationed in each of the halls that the event was taking place in, doing their best to blend in. Peter had hung back, not wanting to scare Neal off, but if he was coming he would likely be inside by now. If they could all avoid being spotted by Caffrey, hopefully they could catch him in the act. After all, Peter reassured himself, Neal was unlikely to be expecting them this time.
----
Neal felt twitchy, restless and constrained, as if his well tailored suit was in fact two sizes too small. It was an unfamiliar feeling; normally when he started to feel hemmed in by his thoughts or his environment, he’d change into another form. But now, under the watchful gaze of his new ‘partner’, he was unable to shift, and his skin was starting to feel too tight.
He should have known better than to take a commission from someone who was rumored to be as demanding and controlling as Barber. After what Barber had termed the ‘debacle’ in Austria, where the FBI had been all over the scene, the man has insisted on closely supervising the second part of the job himself, to make sure he got the rest of his set. Neal had tried to reassure him that he hadn’t come close to being caught in Innsbruck, but without being able to reveal the exact mechanics of his escape, he hadn’t been able to convince him. And so Neal and Mozzie had a very unwelcome guest passenger on their current trip. If Barber didn’t have such a reputation for violence, Neal might have argued further about including him, but he was well aware that getting on Barber’s bad side would be unwise. He was, Neal thought as he felt Barber’s breath on the back of his neck, a little like Matthew Keller. Without the looks and the charm.
Still, this should be an easy job. The Wallace Collection, housed at Hertford House, was small and low-key, and security was limited to two guards and a couple cameras that had multiple blind spots. The more valuable items were behind alarmed glass cases, but the statues Barber wanted weren’t precious enough to warrant such measures – at least not to anyone but him, and by proxy, Neal. From where he and Barber stood, mostly concealed in one of the corridors off the main hall, he could see the statues stacked on the central, open display. All it would take was a distraction, and that was already taken care of: Mozzie was poised elsewhere in the building with a lighter, a piece of paper and a clear line of sight to the nearest smoke sensor.
‘Run it through for me one more time,’ Barber murmured into Neal’s ear, his mouth uncomfortably close to Neal’s skin and his voice hard and grating even at the low volume. Neal did his best not to shift away as he scanned the adjacent hall for possible complications.
‘My associate sets off the fire alarm. The building is evacuated. I access the display via the route we discussed, avoiding the cameras. I take the items, return to this corridor and we leave via the side door, the same way we entered, before the firefighters arrive.’ Then you pay me, and hopefully I never see you again. He glanced over his shoulder at Barber, noting his tight jaw and distrusting expression. Neal didn’t know why he wanted these statues – didn’t want to know, hadn’t even asked – but it was obvious that they meant a hell of a lot to Barber. Neal gave his best reassuring smile, before turning back to his surveillance.
‘Trust me, everything will go smooth…’ He trailed off.
Barber tensed up behind him. ‘What? What is it?’
Neal ignored him, his eyes focused on the short blond man in the cheap suit who was standing near the central display in the hall. He was an average-looking guy, with nothing out of the ordinary about him, but something didn’t feel right. He wasn’t with anyone, he wasn’t chatting or dancing, and the drink in his hand looked untouched. As Neal cast his mind back over the last few minutes, he realized that while everyone else in the hall had been admiring the art, this guy had given it only cursory glances. He was more interested in studying the crowd. Maybe he was just waiting for someone – his date, perhaps – but Neal couldn’t be sure.
‘Caffrey. What’s wrong?’ Barber’s voice was a growl now.
‘Nothing,’ Neal said quietly, trying to convince himself. ‘There’s a guy who looks out of place, but he’s probably just wishing he was at home watching TV instead of being dragged out to a museum by his girlfriend.’
Barber followed Neal’s gaze. ‘Blond guy, green tie?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You thinking cop? FBI?’
Neal shook his head. ‘I don’t see why the police would be here. And we’ve been too careful for the FBI to find us. I didn’t leave any trail. Even Peter isn’t that good.’
‘Who the hell is Peter?’
‘No-one. Don’t worry about it. Even if the guy is a cop, he can’t see us from there, and he’ll be evacuated with everyone else when the fire alarm goes off.’
‘I don’t like this,’ muttered Barber. ‘We should go to Plan B.’
Neal frowned. ‘We don’t have a Plan B.’
‘Of course we do,’ Barber said, and when Neal turned to look at him, his smile was like a snake’s. ‘I always have a Plan B.’
‘Are you going to share it with me?’ Neal asked, wishing once again that he was here alone. Barber’s hand went to his suit jacket, and smoothed it down, revealing a slight bulge.
‘Simple. We wait until the party’s over, and everyone’s gone – including our friend in the green tie. Then you encourage the guards to look the other way while you take what we came for. I don’t think they’ll say no once I lend you a little something to persuade them with.’
Neal didn’t have to ask what that something was. He set his jaw. ‘I’m not holding anyone at gunpoint. Plan A will work.’
Barber stared back at him for a few seconds. ‘Fine. But if that guy doesn’t follow everyone else out when the alarm goes off, then Plan B it is.’
Neal looked at his watch. ‘Well, we’ll find out in two and a half minutes.’ Somehow, he didn’t have high hopes. Between Barber’s unwelcome company, the gun he now knew was settled in Barber’s jacket and the growing feeling of discomfort in his own stomach, Neal was starting to wish he could walk away from this job completely.
----
He should walk away, he knew. He should stop gazing at his own naked figure in the mirror, watching as the cool air drew gooseflesh up across his arms. He should go back to the bedroom, crawl into bed next to Kate, wrap himself around her and forget about unicorns and magic and anything except her warm, soft body in his arms.
But he had to know what it felt like.
So he closed his eyes, and he thought of the unicorn.
He felt the familiar shift inside him, the split-second where his physical form seemed to slip away from him, melting into nothingness before reassembling into something new.
By the time he opened his eyes a moment later, everything had changed. Not just his body, but his soul. Time fell away, and he felt at once ancient and brand new. He could feel everything – each cell of his body was vibrating, singing, and each pump of hot blood through his arteries was like a wave of power and promise.
In the mirror was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. A smooth, sinewy body, so white that it seemed to glow. A long white mane and tail, spun through with silver, shimmering like moonlight on the ocean. And a shining horn that spiralled upwards to a sharp, perfect point.
Neal stared, unable to draw his eyes away from his new form. It was mesmerizing. Every part of him was exhilarated, and a thought came to him, clearer than any thought before.
I could stay like this forever.
The words knocked him out of his reverie, and he squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the image of his reflection. Without another second of hesitation, he shifted back to his human form, and found himself stumbling forward on shaking legs, his hands flying up in front of him to catch himself against the wall. His heart hammered against his chest, and his eyes burned with the afterimage of the white glow, casting spots across his vision.
Neal sucked in a breath, and then another, trying to calm his spinning mind. He’d almost lost himself. There, in the form of the unicorn, he’d felt his human qualities slide further away from him than ever before. The power was too strong, the magic was too hypnotic, the potential was too hard to resist. The urge to forget himself and to stay in the form had been overwhelming.
He pushed himself away from the wall and turned to the mirror, reassuring himself that he was still there, was still human. Kate was right, he realized. He should forget about unicorns.
----
‘Still no sign?’ Peter asked softly as he sidled up next to Anderson, who was pretending to admire a vase while keeping a close watch on the room beyond.
‘Nothing. No news from Milton?’
Peter shook his head, and tried not to wince at the sympathetic smile he received from the younger agent. He was getting the distinct impression that his small team thought they were on a wild goose chase. And maybe they were; the party had been going on for two hours, and neither of his agents had spotted anyone even vaguely resembling Caffrey. Peter had no choice but to check the venue himself for signs they might have missed, and hope he found something.
Of course… there was another possibility. Maybe his words to Neal last time they had spoken had sunk in deeper than Peter had expected. Maybe Neal had decided to draw back from his life of crime. It was a thought that had been hovering at the back of Peter’s mind all day, and he kept pushing it away. He wasn’t sure if he was ignoring it because he was afraid it was false, and he would end up having to put Caffrey away for a depressingly long time, or because he was afraid it was true. If it was true, if Neal had chosen to retire, then he would be safe, and the art world would be a little more secure, but the chase would be over. Nothing would be left but dead ends, unanswered questions, and a man he had almost known but never would. Peter would have lost, in every way.
He sighed and moved away from Anderson, winding his way through the crowd and towards the larger hall where he knew the statues in question were displayed, and where Milton had been keeping watch. He was just about to step over the threshold into the second hall, when the piercing shriek of an alarm shattered the air.
For a moment Peter thought it was a security alarm, and he swiftly stepped forward into the hall, eyes searching for the statues, expecting to see only an empty space where they should be. But he couldn’t get a clear eye-line, and as the room swarmed around him, voices rising in confusion and faces turning to panic, he realized it wasn’t a security breach – it was the fire alarm. Nevertheless, Peter was certain the source was the same. Caffrey.
Vaguely he heard the pleas from the museum staff for the public to make their way to the exits in a calm and orderly fashion, but he paid no attention. He barked questions into his comms, but his agents could see nothing suspicious. In front of him, the room was starting to clear, and he caught a glimpse of Milton, the only still figure, and the sculptures – exactly where they should be.
Peter narrowed his eyes, then snapped instructions to Milton and Anderson to evacuate along with the others and keep watch on the exits. If Neal was planning to steal the artworks when the hall was empty, then they’d have to ensure the hall did indeed look empty. Peter ducked back into the first hall and slipped behind the doorway, making sure he couldn’t be seen from the main hall. He waited as it emptied, Milton passing him without acknowledgement. The commotion was dissipating as the crowds flowed out behind him, but the fire alarm kept up its painfully loud screech.
‘Sir, we need you to exit the building,’ a young security guard said, his hand on Peter’s arm, pulling slightly as he tried to direct him out of the hall with the others. Both rooms were almost cleared. Peter shook him off, reaching for his pocket and flashing his FBI ID. The guard gave him a puzzled look, but Peter put his finger on his lips and nodded towards the exit, and after a moment of indecision the guard backed away, did a final sweep of the room and then headed out, leaving Peter alone.
Peter’s heart began to thud. This wasn’t a fire, he was sure of it: this was Caffrey’s doing. Neal could be just meters away from him right now, unaware that he was almost within Peter’s grasp. His limbs were tense, ready to spring into action, and he reached for his gun.
He edged slightly around the doorway, still keeping himself mostly hidden, and let his gaze sweep the exhibition hall. It was deserted.
Peter stayed perfectly still. It felt like the world had stopped around him, except for the alarm still echoing around the halls. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the slightest of movements from one of the corridors heading off the hall. He edged out a little further to get a better view, and leaned forward. There was a flash of dark clothing as a figure started to emerge from the corridor, and before Peter could step back –
– he locked eyes with Neal.
----
For a second, Neal froze. The sight of Peter was so unexpected, and the rush of emotions that came with it so intense – shock, fear, admiration, an inappropriate thrill – that Neal could do nothing but stare, a rabbit caught in the trap of Peter’s gaze. He realized it was the first time he and Peter had looked each other in the face since that day outside the bank.
Then Peter moved, his mouth starting to open and the hand holding his gun rising. The spell broke, and Neal turned and ran.
He heard Barber swearing as the man sprinted after him down the corridor, their footsteps clattering against the polished wooden floors, loud but not loud enough to drown out Peter’s shouts to stop. Neal felt panic rising in his throat, sharp and unfamiliar. He always had an escape route, always had a way to shift out of trouble, but with Barber on his heels he was almost as helpless as any other man on the run. His only chance was to be faster and smarter than Peter, and he wasn’t completely sure he was either.
Neal didn’t look back, but he could tell Peter was keeping pace with them; if anything his footsteps sounded nearer now than they had done a moment ago. He skidded around the corner of the corridor, his leather shoes slipping dangerously on the waxed wood, and gave thanks that the building was small and they would be out soon, into the night and away from the bright museum lights.
They wound their way through the final corridor, and burst through the side door, a little-used fire exit that brought them out into the narrow street near the rear of the building. After the warmth and brightness of the interior, it was a relief to be instantly wrapped in the dark anonymity of the night. Neal pulled in a shaking breath of cold air as the rain flooded down on them.
Barber slammed the door shut behind him. ‘Split up,’ he snapped, turning to the left, and racing away without a backwards glance at Neal.
Relief rushed through Neal. Peter’s footsteps were already almost at the door they’d just exited, but it no longer mattered. He was alone and unobserved, if only for a moment; he closed his eyes and let himself shift.
Seconds later the door was flung open and Peter ran out into the street. Neal watched him glance each way down the lane, glimpse Barber’s retreating back in the rain-masked glow of a streetlamp and sprint after him, shouting requests for back-up into his comms as he did so.
On his perch above the doorway, Neal took a moment to compose himself, sucking in as deep a breath as he could whilst in the form of a pigeon. The adrenaline surge had left him shaky, and he pulled his soft gray wings around himself while the rain continued to fall. Once his fluttering heart had slowed, he took flight, following the faint echoes of Barber and Peter’s chase. He had to know the outcome; he had no doubt that if Barber was caught, he’d tell Peter anything and everything he knew about Neal in return for his release.
It didn’t take long to find Barber, but Neal’s heart sank as he flew above him. The man didn’t know the poorly-lit back alleys of London well enough to navigate them on a rain-drenched night like this, and he was heading straight down a dead end. As Neal watched, Barber slowed to a stop, taking in the wall a few meters away from him, the tall buildings on each side, and the utter lack of escape routes. Peter was almost at the entrance of the street, and there was no time to turn back. Neal glanced around for a way to help his accomplice, but there was none.
And then, as he hovered in the air, watching Barber turn to face the alley’s entrance, a shaft of light from a window above caught the expression on Barber’s face, and Neal’s blood ran cold.
He squawked desperately as Peter entered the mouth of the alleyway, but the screech of a bird meant nothing to Peter, just another noise in the night among the hammering of raindrops and the nearby traffic.
And neither Neal nor Peter had time to do anything more before Barber raised his gun and pulled the trigger.
The night cracked apart with the sound of the shot. Peter’s body crumpled to the ground, his face pale and his shirt a stark splash of white against the dark ground and the black tuxedo. As Neal watched, stunned, the shirt began to flood with red.
Distantly, Neal registered Barber fleeing the alleyway, the sound of his footsteps indecipherable through the ringing in Neal’s ears. A gunshot was loud for a human; as a pigeon, it seemed to shatter Neal’s whole body. His small frame rocked back and forth in the air, then fluttered haphazardly to the ground, his wings shaking. But his eyes were glued on Peter, and the front of his shirt that was now almost entirely dyed a dark, horrifying red.
As Neal came to a shuddering stop on the ground, he heard Peter groan, and then gasp some words into his comms: ‘Officer down’, and their location.
Neal hesitated. He should go, fly away back to the hotel, back to Mozzie, out of harm’s way. Peter’s back-up would be there soon, and they would help. But Peter didn’t look like he could wait, and Neal somehow knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if their situations were reversed, Peter wouldn’t leave him.
Peter’s eyes were closed, so Neal pulled himself together and shifted to his human form, knowing even as he transformed that at any moment Peter’s fellow agents could come around the corner and see him standing over Peter’s fallen body. But that barely mattered.
He sank to his knees next to Peter, and pressed both hands to the bullet wound in Peter’s stomach, the blood hot and sticky on his fingers. Beneath his touch, Peter’s body was shaking.
‘Peter? Peter!’ Neal’s voice sounded small to his own ears. ‘You’re okay. You’re fine. Help’s coming. Hang on.’
At the sound of Neal’s voice, Peter’s eyes flickered open. He frowned, and Neal wondered briefly, ridiculously, if he was perturbed to be being helped by a criminal. But then Peter’s face screwed up further, and Neal could only see pain and fear. And something else, something desperate and devastated in Peter’s eyes that told him Peter thought – maybe even knew – that he was dying.
----
Peter hoped it would be Clinton who told Elizabeth. He hoped he’d be sweet, and gentle, and at the same time he knew it wouldn’t make any difference, because El would be torn to pieces no matter how she was told.
It was her worst nightmare, and Peter had told her it would never happen, sworn to her. He’d believed it too. Other agents got killed in the line of duty. But not Peter Burke.
Peter Burke wasn’t the sort of man who died in a pool of blood in a dark alley, alone and scared. He was the sort of man who died in his bed, aged ninety-five with his wife by his side.
And yet. Here he was. The stony ground cold and hard against his back, his leg folded awkwardly under him, his stomach surging with pain, his whole body feeling like a sledgehammer had hit it. Someone had once told him that being shot didn’t really hurt, at least not at first. The adrenaline kept the body from registering the pain.
That person had been wrong.
Milton and Anderson would have called for an ambulance by now. They’d be here themselves in minutes, if they could find their way through the maze of London streets. But Peter could feel himself slipping already.
And then his stomach exploded with agonizing pressure, ripping a dry gasp from his throat, and there was a voice, familiar and unfamiliar at once, pushing through his consciousness and grounding him back in his body.
He forced his eyes open. It took a moment for them to focus as he squinted through the rain. Then Neal Caffrey’s face came into his vision. And for the first time, he saw what Neal Caffrey looked like when he was truly afraid.
They both knew how this was going to end.
‘You’re fine,’ Neal said. ‘You’re okay. It’s gonna take more than this to take the famous Agent Burke down.’
Peter felt tears spring to his eyes. He swallowed against the lump in his throat, forcing himself to find his voice.
‘My… wife,’ he managed. ‘You…tell her…’
‘I’m not telling her anything,’ Neal interrupted. ‘You’re fine. You’re –’ He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he lifted his hand from Peter’s stomach, looked down, and swore. He bit his lip, and something seemed to be warring within him for a moment.
Then he told Peter to close his eyes.
Peter ignored him, and started to speak again. But his words failed him when he saw Neal reach into his pocket and bring out a Swiss army knife. He stared, confusion quickly followed by horror at the thought that Neal might try to dig the bullet out by himself.
But Neal didn’t bring the knife to Peter’s skin. He shoved his own sleeve up, and brought it to his own arm. And sliced through the skin.
Peter watched the blood drip down, transfixed. Then his vision went white.
At first, Peter thought he’d died. But the white glow filling his gaze wasn’t heavenly light. It was moving. It was – Peter blinked rapidly. Standing next to him, where Neal had been, was a horse. A white horse, large and lean, its skin seeming to reflect every particle of light available, and repelling the falling rain so that it formed a hazy cloud around the horse’s body, like a halo. Peter’s gaze travelled upwards to its head, its huge, dark eyes and its slender, twisting horn.
He was hallucinating. Of course.
The horse – the unicorn – raised its foreleg over Peter’s stomach. The foreleg had a clean cut across it, and from it flowed a shining silver river of blood that fell onto Peter’s sodden shirt and soaked through to his wound.
Peter had never felt a sensation like it. It was a bright fire spreading through his skin and into his body, sharp and hot but beautiful, purifying him, knitting him back together, ridding him of pain until he was filled with light. It lasted for only a few seconds, during which Peter stared into the unicorn’s eyes, transfixed, and the unicorn stared back.
Then it was over, and the air shifted, the glow dissipated, the rain fell straight to the ground again and Neal Caffrey was looking back at him.
‘You –’ Peter started, and was surprised to find his voice strong and steady, not the painful gasp it had been before. He pushed himself to a sitting position and yanked up his shirt, looking in wonder and overwhelming relief at the smooth, unblemished skin. He ran his fingers across it, pressed down where the bullet had torn through him, but there was no sign of it: he was whole.
He looked back at Neal, suddenly completely sure he hadn’t hallucinated anything. ‘You. You’re magic. You’re…’ He paused. ‘You’re a unicorn?’
Neal looked a little pale, and his suit was slightly ruffled, but he laughed carelessly. ‘You hit your head Peter. You’ve been seeing things. You should get that checked out when you get home. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ He started to get to his feet, but Peter reached out and snagged a hand around his wrist.
‘You’re magic,’ Peter said again, and it wasn’t a question any more. ‘You healed me.’ He bunched up his reddened shirt in his hand and held it up in front of Neal. ‘I was bleeding. You healed me.’ He was shocked at how certain he was of this utter impossibility.
Neal frowned, glancing anxiously at the mouth of the alley and back again. ‘Can we have this conversation another time?’ he said, urgency growing in his voice as he tried to yank his hand out of Peter’s grip. ‘I have places to be.’
As if on cue, heavy footsteps sounded outside the alleyway, and Peter heard Milton shouting. Without thinking, he let go of Neal’s wrist. He glanced around, looking for an escape route for Neal without quite registering what he was doing. But Neal had nowhere to go; he was trapped, whether Peter wanted him to be or not.
Peter turned back to Neal, but instead of the man kneeling next to him, he saw only a flash of feathers, and a pair of wings beating the air. He fell back in shock, watching mutely as the large, golden feathered owl spread out his wings and swept up into the dark sky. It hovered for a moment over the alley as the other agents arrived, and then soared away.
----
Neal flew and flew. Beneath his wings the lights of the city shone, whites and yellows and blues blurring together through the rain. The whole of London was spread out under him, his for the taking, but there was nowhere he wanted to go. He couldn’t face returning to the hotel, fielding questions from Mozzie and angry incriminations from Barber.
Instinctively he sought out the darker areas of the city, and found himself flying over Hyde Park, dipping low and sweeping through the avenues of trees. Beyond the park lay Kensington Gardens, acres of lawns and flowerbeds laid out before the palace, lit by the moonlight reflecting off the lake. Neal flew slower as the rain began to abate, and he eventually alighted on the shoulder of the Peter Pan statue in the midst of the gardens.
He had admired the statue in photographs before – The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, cast in bronze and standing atop a tree trunk while squirrels, rabbits and mice climbed up to him. It had seemed beautiful then, but now as Neal saw it up close, its magic seemed to ebb away. Now it was just a lost boy, caught between worlds, never truly belonging anywhere, standing alone while the animals tried to reach him but never did.
Neal dove gently down from the statue and approached the lake nearby, standing on the shore and staring at his reflection in the water, so foreign to what he normally saw in the mirror. It was distorted with the ripples of the last raindrops as they fell gently on the already swollen lake, but Neal continued to watch the disrupted image of the owl. It was strangely comforting to see the turmoil and whirling emotions inside him reflected by the shifting image on the lake’s surface.
Neal couldn’t quite believe what he had done. He had never purposefully revealed himself to anyone before. Kate had known from the moment she saw him, and Mozzie had found out by accident, walking in on him mid-shift one evening when Neal had thought he was staying overnight at a safe-house. Neal had never thought he would take the risk of voluntarily showing his nature to someone else; he would never have imagined trusting someone that much. But watching Peter bleed out, thinking of Elizabeth becoming a widow – it had been impossible to turn away. He’d barely even thought about his promise to Kate never to use his power.
And now Peter knew. He had seen it with his own eyes, and his blood-drenched shirt was all the evidence he would need to convince himself that he hadn’t imagined it. Neal could barely believe he had taken the risk of transforming – not just in front of the agent, but also to a form he knew was dangerously hypnotic. He could have lost himself amidst the overwhelming surge of power that he felt when his blood flowed from him. He might have forgotten his human form, forgotten the need for secrecy and concealment, and bounded out into the night, seduced by the magic.
He hadn’t though. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Peter had brought him back. The whole time he had been healing him, Peter’s eyes had never left his, his gaze steady and grounding. It had been stronger than the pull of the unicorn; it had reminded him who he was.
What would Peter do though? Would he tell others? There was no real reason why he should keep Neal’s secret; Neal was a criminal, someone who needed to be contained, and it was Peter’s job to do so. Even now, he could be sitting down and plotting a way to force Neal to reveal himself, thinking of a way to capture him. Neal didn’t believe Peter was the sort of man who would want him subjected to tests and research, but experience had taught him you could never really know someone else. And regardless, Peter was definitely the sort of man who believed those who broke the law should be caught and imprisoned.
That wasn’t what was eating at Neal the most though. He knew he should be concerned about exposure, but what was hurting him far more, what was causing a deep, empty ache in his stomach, was the thought of what Peter would think of him. Neal hated the thought that Peter would look at him and see a freak, an aberration contrary to all the laws of nature.
The sense of loss overtook him for a moment, and he stumbled back from the lake, taking flight once again in an effort to clear his mind. He would never again be able to chat light-heartedly to Peter on the phone; he would never be able to visit the Burkes’ as a cat and curl up in their warm, safe home next to Elizabeth. They would never have loved him, of course, could never have been his, but before they knew, the fantasy could remain.
Now it was gone. How could anyone know the truth about him and not be scared or repelled? His mother had always told him people would seek to destroy him if they found out, or to use him for their own ends.
Kate was the only one who could ever really want him; she had been his only chance to have someone who knew his true self and still wanted him in their life. He knew that; she’d told him herself.
----
Kate stood in the unlit bedroom of their apartment with her back to Neal, staring out the window. The bright lights of New York City at night turned her into a silhouette, but Neal could tell from the tense way she stood and the way she had wrapped her arms tightly around herself that she was still angry and hurt.
‘Pizza’s getting cold,’ he tried, shifting uncomfortably in the doorway. She didn’t reply. ‘Kate –’ he started again, and she turned around, the hard expression on her face stopping him in his tracks. She was mostly in shadow, but he could see the tight line of her jaw, the defiant raise of her chin, the way her eyes were narrowed.
‘You really thought you could con me?’ she asked. ‘You thought some heist with Alex – some trinket – was worth trying to con me over?’
‘It’s a music box,’ he corrected automatically. ‘And no – I didn’t – I just didn’t think –’
Neal was lost. It was so involuntary, the instinct to deceive, to mislead, to hide, that he hadn’t even considered telling Kate the truth about why he wanted to head to Europe.
‘I’m the person you don’t have to pull this sort of crap with,’ Kate said, quietly, and Neal could hear the tremor in her voice. But then she shook her head, and when she spoke again her words were harder. ‘And Alex? She doesn’t even know who you are. She doesn’t know what you are.’
‘She’s just a friend. We’re only –’
‘No. She’s not your friend. She doesn’t understand you. And even if she knew the truth about you… she’s not one of us. She could never really accept you, not like I do. Nobody will ever love you the way I do.’
Kate stepped away from the window and reached down. Neal followed her movement and saw her take the handle of the small suitcase he hadn’t noticed before. His breath caught in his chest.
‘You’re leaving?’
She dragged the suitcase along the floor, until she was almost in line with Neal. As she got closer, he noticed the silvery tracks that had made their way down her cheeks. Dried tears.
‘Please –’ he said, the word sticking in his throat. ‘Please, Kate –’
‘Nobody will ever know you like I do,’ she repeated, and slipped past him.
----
‘You’re doing it again,’ Elizabeth said with a smile as she joined Peter at the table in their yard. She put a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.
Peter spread butter on his croissant to give him something to do with his hands. ‘Doing what?’ he asked innocently, avoiding El’s eyes.
She laughed. ‘Studying every bird that comes near our yard,’ she said, and Peter couldn’t help but grin back at her, warmed by the fondness in her voice and endlessly amazed that she had believed his ridiculous tale almost without question. He’d been back in Brooklyn for five days now and after El had recovered from the shock of hearing he’d been shot, she’d been happy to discuss all his weird and wonderful theories about Neal Caffrey. And she was right – he could no longer relax and eat breakfast in his back yard without studying every animal and wondering if it was Caffrey. He felt like he was going a little crazy, but El was remarkably patient.
‘What about him?’ El asked, pointing at a grey squirrel that had appeared on their back fence. ‘He looks like he could be a dashing young criminal in disguise.’ She sipped her coffee and raised her eyebrows at Peter, her eyes sparkling.
‘Are you mocking me?’ Peter asked mildly. He turned to look at the squirrel. It cocked its head slightly to the side, and then jumped down from the fence and took a couple of steps towards the table.
‘See. It likes you,’ El teased. ‘Must be Neal.’
‘It probably wants my croissant,’ Peter muttered, but he leaned forward, squinting at the squirrel. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see a rift in the fur on its left foreleg – a cut that was still healing, perhaps. Or maybe it was just his imagination.
He pushed back his chair and got up from the table, but the squirrel skittered backwards, spooked. Peter put his hands out, his palms raised upwards, doing his best to appear non-threatening, and the squirrel stopped, watching him carefully.
Peter took a careful step forward, and the squirrel took a corresponding step back. For a moment they stared at each other, and then Peter sat down on the ground, ignoring the fact that he was mussing up his suit pants.
‘Caffrey?’ he asked, feeling more than a little foolish.
The squirrel cocked its head to the side again, but otherwise didn’t move. Peter looked back at El for encouragement, but she was staring at the squirrel. He turned back.
‘Neal?’ he said. ‘If that’s you… Look, don’t worry, I’m not going to try and arrest you. I’m guessing I couldn’t contain you anyway. But I wanted to say…what you did for me in London. It was amazing. I didn’t have time to say thank you.’
The squirrel kept its eyes on Peter. It looked like it was listening to him, but of course it could just be waiting for him to feed him some of his croissant. Peter carried on regardless.
‘And Neal, I can’t even pretend to understand what happened or what you can do. But I’ve been thinking. And researching.’ He took a deep breath. What he was about to suggest – to a squirrel, no less – was risky. But Neal was worth the risk.
‘I know you don’t want to turn yourself in. But, there’s precedent. If you were convicted of a crime, and an FBI agent was willing to take you into his custody… you could be released. On a tracking anklet, of sorts. Nothing that you couldn’t escape, I guess, and go flying off around the city. But in between flights, you could help me. It would be useful to have someone who knows the things you do in the White Collar unit. And then, when your sentence was over, you’d be free. Really free, not running from the law. You could have a normal life. And when you were with me… well, you wouldn’t have to hide yourself.’
Peter stopped, his heart beating hard, and he suddenly realized how much this meant to him, how much he wanted Neal to agree. How much he wanted to get to know this amazing man, and how much he wanted that man to have a life that wasn’t filled with danger and crime.
The squirrel still hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken his eyes away from Peter. There was silence then for a few moments, and then the squirrel turned and began to leave. Peter sighed. It was probably just a squirrel. The likelihood of Caffrey daring to come back to his house was low.
But just as the squirrel was about to climb the fence that ran around the yard, Elizabeth’s voice rang out.
‘Neal?’ she said, and the squirrel paused and looked back. Peter told himself it was just reacting to the noise, but his heart leapt anyway. He watched El smile at the squirrel, a special smile that she usually reserved only for Peter.
‘Thank you for saving my husband’s life,’ she said softly.
The squirrel watched her for a few seconds, then turned and scurried away. Peter pushed himself up off the ground, and wrapped his arms around his wife.
‘Are we crazy people?’ he asked her quietly. ‘Talking to squirrels?’
El shrugged and reached up to kiss him. ‘I don’t really care,’ she said with a smile.
----
Neal had gone to say goodbye. To take one last look at the life he could never have. After that, he’d been planning on leaving. Leaving New York, maybe even leaving the States. Continuing to search for Kate, or starting to seek out another of his kind, even if he had to scour the whole world.
But it hadn’t been a goodbye at all. Peter had recognized him, had seen through him with ease. He had sat on the ground and talked to him, eyes soft, smile genuine, without a hint of disgust. He hadn’t tried to trap him; he hadn’t looked down on him. He had been looking for a way to help him. And maybe – Neal could dare to hope – he had even been looking for a way to bring Neal into his life.
And Elizabeth had looked at him so kindly, spoken to him so sweetly, and smiled at him in a way that made his heart flutter. A way that made him believe there were people who could know what he was, and might still, one day, be able to love him.
Of course he wouldn’t take up Peter’s offer though, even if a tracking anklet could be shed as easily as paper handcuffs, and even if everything that Peter had said was right. The idea of turning himself in shouldn’t even be worth considering. He would never trade freedom for captivity, even if the captivity was just for show.
But as he sat, still in squirrel form, in an elm tree in Central Park, he had to admit, it was tempting.
----
Exactly a week had passed since Peter had spoken to the squirrel in his yard, and he had convinced himself that it hadn’t been Neal. That hadn’t stopped him looking at every passing animal for a hint of blue eyes or a mischievous grin. He didn’t think he’d ever stop looking for Neal.
‘Mail for you, hon,’ El said as she swept by him, landing a quick kiss on the top of his head and dropping an envelope on the table in front of him. He looked up from his breakfast and felt his pulse speed up. He recognized that handwriting.
He picked up the envelope and opened it carefully. He had long stopped bothering to look for fingerprints on Neal’s notes, but he nevertheless handled it almost reverently. Inside was a handmade greeting card, and the small watercolor scene on the front took Peter’s breath away. It was him, sitting in his back yard, talking to a small gray squirrel. He felt a grin spreading over his face.
He opened the card. Inside it read:
Peter,
Thank you for the offer.
I’ll think about it.
Xx
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2015-05-27 11:27 pm (UTC)Brilliant and achingly beautiful. I cried when it ended. Thank you so much for creating something so exquisite for my artwork.
Brava, brava, brava!
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Date: 2015-05-28 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2015-05-28 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-28 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-28 03:22 pm (UTC)Nature of the Chase
Date: 2015-05-28 04:48 pm (UTC)Re: Nature of the Chase
Date: 2015-05-29 01:19 am (UTC)I would like to think I'll write more in this verse, fingers crossed! :)
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Date: 2015-05-31 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2015-06-03 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-04 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-06 09:58 pm (UTC)And the scene with Neal saving Peter - d'awwwwwwww, so, sooo beautiful, I don't think there could have been a better way for Peter to learn about Neal's secret ♥ And Peter's offer at the end - it's so very Peter and I just know Neal's gonna take that offer :P Heee :D
Love this soooo much \o/ ♥
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Date: 2015-06-07 02:18 am (UTC)Haha I think he might just end up taking the offer too :D
I really AM sad it's over..
Date: 2015-06-09 11:04 am (UTC)And the ending - aaaaaaaah!
True Perfection.
Even though you shot Peter, and I shouldn't really forgive you for this... But dayum, I already have, and it wasn't even a choice! It just naturally happened when you made me feel all soft and gooey inside. Peter's gaze being enough to keep Neal from wanting to be a unicorn. The. squirrel. scene. I surrender, my will is no longer under my command.
Happy tears!
Re: I really AM sad it's over..
Date: 2015-06-09 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2015-12-05 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-08 04:26 am (UTC)For some reason I just love the idea of Neal as having some sort of supernatural powers/abilities, it seems to be becoming a recurring theme in my fics and the ones I read!
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Date: 2015-12-08 05:08 am (UTC)I love that idea, too. I mean, he's got a magically charming personality, why not literal powers?? LOL!