#threads ⋆˙ neal caffrey

[entriprises]

NEAL CAFFREY, SHOES. oil on canvas, 1888, 18 x 21.75 in.

NIMROD , @swordstolen liked for a starter

“i’m not accusing you of anything, but if the shoe fits…” his whole posture straightens, “well, it’s less of a belief in your guilt and more of a fact.” his hand extends out, palm open and waiting. 

[lcstpaths]

❝ IT WAS A FLESH WOUND, ❞  which didn’t exactly make it better. she was pretty sure that pulling a trigger on the love of her life wasn’t exactly incorporated within the  to have and to hold  section of their vows.  ❝ yeah but...scars are sexy. ❞  she aimed for lightness, giving him a brief, bright, somewhat apologetic smile as she stepped closer.  ❝ and chicks dig scars. ❞  lifting her hands, caroline tentatively examined the wound, exhaling in a small bit of relief when she realized that the blood had mostly stopped. but he was right. they had to figure this out --- because shooting him? not exactly a pleasant experience. her hand shifted, cupping his cheek, thumb stroking apologetically over the cut of his cheekbone.  ❝ i mean we could...fake our own death? change names? move to the suburbs somewhere and get a dog? ❞

ONE OF HIS EYEBROWS QUIRKS UP AS HE LOOKS AT HER, though try as he might, there's a bit of a twitch at the corners of his lips. It's hard not to laugh, really, when she was trying to defend her actions by saying scars were sexy. Did it make sense? Maybe a bit - but they both knew that it didn't really change the facts of their situation. "Oh yeah? Do you dig scars?" One of his hands rests lightly on her waist, pulling her that bit closer as a long sigh falls from his lips. Leaning his head in, he ghosts his lips over hers before he bites the inside of his cheek. "What would we do with our new lives, hm? It's never gonna be that easy." Not without money. And yeah, he's been stockpiling in hidden accounts for years, all for the day they're going to escape this life, but he wants that to be a surprise. "We'd drive each other crazy in the suburbs. I'd start an HOA war with housewives down the street."

@seesgood continued from here.

[penna-nomen]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thanks for the tag @a-noble-dragon

How many works do you have on ao3?

78

What’s your total ao3 word count?

934,082

What fandoms do you write for?

White Collar, The Good Place, Supernatural, Discworld, Doctor Who, Leverage, Psych, Murderbot Diaries, Jane Austen novels, and more

Top five fics by kudos:

1 Caffrey Conversation

2 Choirboy Caffrey

3 By the Book

4 Bouquet

5 Caffrey Envoy

Do you respond to comments?

I try to. I think I keep up on AO3, but the email issues on FF have been a trial.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh, that's tough. I don't tend to end with angst. I'd say probably:

The Late Ambassador Spock

Do you get hate on fics?

There have been a few negative comments, but I don't recall any that were outright hate

Do you write smut?

Nope

Wildest crossover:

There have been some interesting combinations when I've written crossovers for exchanges. One that jumps to mind is:

Universal Truths of Time Travel - A Doctor Who and Pride & Prejudice crossover

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, I don't think so

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Maybe? Someone reached out to ask permission and I agreed but they never got back to me with a link

Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Sort of? I wrote an epilogue to one of Silbrith's stories:

Dawn of the Jackalopes

All time favorite ship?

Oh, that's tough. In terms of writing, my favorite romantic ship has been Neal Caffrey & Sara Ellis of White Collar, and my favorite friendship has been Neal & Peter. In terms of being the audience, I adore Murderbot and its friends, especially Murderbot and ART.

What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Once I started outlining something I called Operation Athena, which was a retelling of one of my Caffrey Conversation stories from the POV of the women. It sounds fun, but I don't know when I'd find the time to write it.

What are your writing strengths?

Why do I go blank on this type of question? I remember getting positive comments about the way the plot threads intertwine and reappear in the Caffrey Conversation series, so let's go with that

What are your writing weaknesses?

At the moment, it's staying focused long enough to make progress.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Once in a fandom charity auction I won the services of someone who speaks French, and that resulted in lines in French in By the Book. Otherwise I'm always too worried about making mistakes.

First fandom you wrote in?

The first one I wrote down was a birthday present for a friend based on the musical Annie. The first I published was in White Collar.

Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh, how do I chose? Caffrey Conversation is dear to my heart as the first one I published.

Open tag to my fic writing friends! I'd love to see your answers

[gean-grey-blog]

@thesymphonytrue

Sorry it took me a while, I was having a TIME with health and family shit

7. Post a snippet from a wip

This is the opening to my current longfic project. It's the first post series fic I've written, because...I've never watched S6😂 I had just gone back to finish college after dropping out for a year and I knew I couldn't watch it without getting sucked in and losing half my time to fandom. By the time I finished the semester I knew what the ending was and I just...decided to not go through that 😅. I've also never seen the ending to M*A*S*H even though it's literally formative American cultural media because I knew bad shit happened and wanted to remember the series as a place I could visit not a story that ended.

Opening to the untiled fic currently named "yurt" in my Google docs:

There was a knock on the door of the yurt. Elizabeth looked up, from cooking. She crossed the small space, and peered through the edge of the shade in front of the window. She opened the door.

Neal Caffrey stood in front of her. Alive, in snow pants, boots, and a parka. He was still shivering.

She let him inside. He scuffed his boots off on the mat, the dry snow crunching, and came in. Elizabeth helped him unzip his coat with his fingers half frozen.

“You found us okay?”

Neal nodded, shrugging the coat off and turning to hang it on the little rack by the door, and answered with his teeth chattering, “it took longer than I wanted to get through the border, I'm sorry."

Elizabeth nodded, “it’s okay. I’m just glad you’re here.”

Neal shrugged, “running when you have amazing, happy things lined up is one thing. Abandoning you and Peter, when he’s…that’s something else.”

Elizabeth’s face softened. She nodded, and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, melting into it. He must have missed them as much as they missed him.

36. What fic are you proudest of?

My first one. It was terrible. It was posted in the comments section on a live journal prompt thread. There was next to no punctuation. I spelled the main character's name wrong multiple times...that name being House, which as the chatacter once pointed out, is also a noun 😅

But I hadn't written anything but school assignments, ever. I have dysgraphia and can't write well by hand, it was the 90's and it took a long time to identify that and by that time I thought I hated writing, full stop. That fic was the first time I wrote for myself. It was the beginning of having a way to process my shit, and express myself, and connect with people

78. What motivates you during the writing process?

Writing is how I self soothe, process my shit, give myself hope, distract myself when I feel physically like garbage, which is a lot. It's also something I can do when I can't even sit up, I just have to be able to poke a phone screen, so it's the one hobby that has remained basically unchanged as I've struggled with health and mobility issues.

[purplehairedwonder]

Fic Stats Game: One Shots

After the original Fic Stats Game was almost entirely multi-chaptered fics, @chromatic-lamina tagged me for a version for one shots!

Rules:

Give us the links to your one shot fics with the most hits, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarks, most words, and least words (does that count for one shots? Guess so).

Most Hits: "Ghosts That We Knew," a White Collar/Chuck crossover where Neal Caffrey and Bryce Larkin are the same person, with 5,858 hits. I wrote that in 2012, wow. Second place goes to "A Far Better Thing," a Seblaine one-shot from my Glee fandom days, with 3,886 hits.

Most Kudos: "Bent But Not Broken," a One Piece one-shot in which Luffy finds Law tending to his injuries after he escaped Hawkins with 479 kudos. Second place is "I Want Your Laughter (Like the Flower I Was Waiting For)", another One Piece fic with Luffy trying to make Law laugh more often and falling in love along the way. It has 451 kudos.

Most Comment Threads: "Aftermath," my first post-chapter 1081 fic, has 21 comment threads. Second place is "The Heart Is a Thing to Be Broken," in which the Straw Hats learn about the events of chapter 1081, with 17 comment threads.

Most Bookmarks: "Bent But Not Broken" is first with 120 bookmarks and "Ghosts That We Knew," is second with 109.

Most Words: "Let It Break," a Supernatural fic that takes place after episode 6.21 and whumps Sam pretty hard, has 7,435 words. Second place is "Where My Demons Hide," a Glee fic dealing with the dynamic between Blaine, Kurt, and Sebastian post-Klaine breakup, with 6,527 words.

Fewest Words: My shortest fic is “See,” a tag for Glee episode 6.01 with 290 words; second shortest is “The Point of a Submarine,” a One Piece prompt fic about the Polar Tang, with 362 words.

Tagging anyone who wants to play--especially if I tagged you the first time but you had one-shots go unnoticed.

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

White Collar OC Ideas

I’ll make a proper masterlist once I actually finish naming them and shit but!!

1. Connor Nelson in Sweetest Con; Neal Caffey ship; Neal’s ex con partner who split when Kate came into the picture, visited Neal frequently in prison and they reconnect when Neal gets out of prison

2. Unnamed OC; Neal Caffrey ship ( probably ); June’s goddaughter whose parents used to work with Byron, OC moved in with June after Byron died and the two are very close

3. Unnamed OC; Peter’s younger sister who he currently has custody of ( fc is tentative, I have one other option that I’m still sort of considering )

4. Unnamed OC; Elizabeth’s younger sister who’s living with them as she finishes university and finds a job in the city

5. Unnamed OC; Neal’s younger sister who ends up moving in with him after he moves in with June, despite his best efforts, Peter can’t get her to leave

6. Unnamed OC in Cowboy Like Me; Neal’s old partner in crime, they were arrested at the same time and talk Peter into taking them both on as CIs

7. Unnamed OC; Neal’s old accomplice who got arrested but was let out on good behaviour because she could only be proven to be an accomplice, insists that she wants nothing to do with Neal or their old life but can’t stay away

8. Unnamed OC in Mastermind; an old partner of Neal’s who never got caught and managed to stay off of Peter’s radar, she and Neal reunite when one of his investigations crosses paths with one of her jobs

9. Unnamed OC; rich brat who Neal once tried to con but instead became friends with, her family has ties to a lot of crime families ( particularly but not exclusively russian ) and corrupt officials which makes her Neal’s go-to when he needs an easy in for any event

10. Unnamed OC; FBI agent who previously worked in intelligence, Peter personally requests her help during Bad Judgement or Threads and so she transfers

11. Unnamed OC; FBI agent who was personally recruited by Peter to the White Collar division due to her exceptional scores at Quantico, where she and Diana were best friends

12. Unnamed OC; FBI agent who works in intelligence or cyber in the same HQ as the white collar team, they team up often

13. Unnamed OC; Private Investigator who frequently crosses paths with the White Collar team and ends up working with them

14. Unnamed OC; Neal’s twin sister who is also a con artist but nothing has been able to be officially pinned on her

15. Unnamed OC, casting TBD ( narrowed down to three options with one tentative preference ), arrested just after she turned 18, Peter strikes a deal for her to be let out on probation, he has her shadowing Neal because he hopes that Neal could actually be a positive influence, it has mixed results

[qwanderer]

Sometimes I'm just sitting there thinking about how Neal Caffrey has a friend with a beautiful Manhattan penthouse he can borrow for jobs and Alec Hardison has a brilliant forger friend who can't leave the states and I go

Yes. They are friends.

[mcmusing]

From Season 1 Episode 2 Threads.

Please note that Peter is allowed to place a paternal arm around Neal all the time but Neal is forbidden from playfully batting at him. **Forbidden**, ya got that 👊😉?!

[highness-in-the-sky]

caffrey

[entriprises]

NEAL CAFFREY, THE PUBLIC GARDEN AT PONTOISE. oil on canvas, 1874, 23 x 28 in.

mellie , @foxtaeil: “is this business or pleasure?” 

he keeps a slow pace, both to match hers and to take in the whole of the rose garden— the grass lawns are about the only place neal is allowed to step foot in where it concerns the white house. “it can’t be both?” grinning, “i have to admit, i didn’t expect you to agree to meet with me or rather…” his head gestures towards one of the many secret service agents standing by, “i didn’t expect to get past those guys, much less onto these grounds.”

[penna-nomen]

For the WIP procrastination emoji ask game:

🍄 , 🤔, ❤️

🍄Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___ =___”

White Collar + Fairy Tale Setting = Peter the noble knight to the rescue in The Fairest of Them All

🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

I have in mind a White Collar/Caffrey Conversation story inspired by Ocean's 8 where the women take the lead in a sting against the bad guy of WC episode Threads. I'm referring to this story as Fashion Caper.

and...

I have in mind a story about Neal hosting a big Thanksgiving bash and going overboard in his planning and asking Peter for help. I'm referring to this story as Overcomplications. That's a tip of the hat to a fun little story titled Complications by @silbrith

and...

Since in Fashion Caper I should make some reference to what the men are up to, I'm seriously considering mashing both of these into a single story.

Thanks for the kudos & asks @bluebellsinburbank!

[leverage-ot3]

look I just think it’d be funny if there was a reddit thread or discord for leverage international members

some highlights I think would happen:

nate ‘AITA when…’ and immediately everyone goes YES

na byeol, parker, and neal caffrey debating the best rigs and cords

eliot sharing recipes and swapping them with international members for variety

specifically experimenting with jokbal for roy

breanna and eui sung exchanging memes

sophie and soo kyung sending fashion ideas and good deals (not that they need them. they’re loaded.)

hardison also participates in that thread because he will always love a good disguise

neal also participates. his menswear outfits are the most tasteful and suave

hardison and eui sung talking code and how they love their partners

hardison hyping eui sung up to accept that na byeol and roy actually love him and want to be with him because he knows what it’s like to hardcore pine

breanna spams their chat with pictures of roy’s dog. she’s working on wearing them down so they can adopt one too

IT CAN BE OUR MASCOT!!!

harry gets grifting tips from various members. everyone remembers what it’s like to be new and they think this funky little lawyer dude is neat so they give him advice

just a grifting tips thread. how to get your mark disinterested in you in five steps or less. how to seduce a person in three easy steps. how to make the perfect handoff: a guide

security system and lock picking thread that parker mods. EVERY thief fawns over everything she says because she’s parker

hitter thread where they talk about best improvised weapons (eliot dominates) and different fighting techniques

sobering thread about the most corrupt cases they’ve handled

thread where they all realize thievery and polyamory are surprisingly common (leverage ot3, con ot3, white collar ot3, etc)

which is then flooded with polyamory memes

RATE! THAT! DISGUISE! aka a thread where they tease each other over the silliest and over the top aliases and outfits they craft

[cheetahleopard]

Back on my white collar/batman bullshit bc It's Only Madness updated

Neal Caffrey has disappeared, for real this time- no record of him ever existing, even the case and arrest records were somehow wiped. Gone without a trace and without warning... 15 months later finds Elizabeth hosting an event for WE's NY branch, with Peter dragged along for the ride

Fic snippet below 

"Hello there," says a familiar voice to Peter's left, and Peter turns to see... Neal Caffrey- but he's not Neal. 

 This is a Neal who's charming but cold, who wears his fitted suits like armor rather than everyday wear.

 Timothy Jackson Drake smiles at them, cold edged smile and eyes that twinkle- not with mirth, but with insecurity.

 "I should arrest you," Peter says, tone mild but insides roiling.

 Neal hums, "It would be quite the scandal, to arrest the head of the New York branch for being someone who doesn't exist."

 "Wha-" 

 "Tim Drake-Wayne," Neal- Tim- holds out a hand between them, "Pleased to meet you."

 Peter gapes until Tim withdraws his hand, turns with a shrug of one shoulder. This was a test. Peter realizes- and he knows he's failed it. 

 Tim glides away, through the false glitz and glamour of the rich, and the last gossamer threads of the mask Neal Caffrey slide and snap off of him as he goes.

[movedyoakkemae]

neal caffrey // tag drop.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ you need to hit rock bottom before you can change and i never did. ❞ 】threads.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ the best cons come from a place of truth. ❞ 】musings.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ never say sorry unless you’re running a con. ❞ 】headcanons.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ i hope you’re ready to sleep with one eye open. ❞ 】aesthetics.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ my freedom is worth more to me than anything that diamond could buy. ❞ 】visage.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ if you avoid something long enough / it has the tendency to blindside you. ❞ 】drabbles.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ this has been more fun than any prison sentence i’ve ever had. ❞ 】opens.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ the means should always justify the ends. ❞ 】metas.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ i have to open a door i never wanted to open. ❞ 】answered.

⤷ neal c.【 ❝ the only people in my life that i trust. ❞ 】relations.

[qwanderer]

What makes a Loki a Loki?

Loki is called upon to be a lot of different people. He’s been raised on Asgard, and that’s formed some of the more basic aspects of his personality and values, but at the same time he has attributes that have been consistently discouraged and pushed down by that culture, and we can see them step forward as he moves into situations where they are encouraged.

Throughout the canons, there are a lot of Lokis. Siege Loki, Lady Loki, Kid Loki and his murderer, Ikol, King Loki, and the God/Goddess of Stories. The earlier aspects I know only by secondhand information, but I’m very familiar with Loki from Young Avengers and Agent of Asgard, some of my favorite comics of all time. But I know some basic facts - the way the earliest Loki was a quintessential comic book villain full of pure simple theatrical mischief and ridiculous schemes, the fact that Lady Loki was a somewhat more sinister appropriator of bodies for her own use.

In my view, MCU!Loki has, at the very least, the same capacity to shift personalities depending on the circumstances, and I haven’t yet seen anything in the Loki show that’s thrown my suspension of disbelief with regards to his characterization.

I’ve seen some people rebel at the idea of Loki gleeful over the destruction of Pompeii and the causing of chaos it allowed, but it reminds me of some meta I wrote very early on in my years of meta-writing in the MCU. The values Loki was raised with, Asgardian values, sometimes treat death very lightly, especially death in battle, especially human or otherwise non-Aesir death. In the Aesir context, at least to a certain extent and certainly in terms of what we’ve seen Odin teach his sons onscreen, violence is honorable, fighting is an adventure, lives are cheap and Valhalla is the ultimate goal.

I think a lot of the central conflict of Loki’s character is that he follows some of these principles to their logical conclusions in situations that Aesir values never meant them to cover. If life is unimportant, then it won’t be so bad if I tell Thor that Odin is dead. If the throne of Asgard has dominion over all the Nine Realms, then why shouldn’t I rule Midgard?

But he also shifts the way he acts to suit the situation. He is a shifter, it’s what he does. On Asgard, he is expected to be a warrior, a dignified prince, a companion and support for his brother. The values are bravery and dignity, and so a lot of what he projects there is bravado and elegance, which are close enough for him to get by.

When he is taken by Thanos, the only things Thanos wants and values are power and death. So Loki becomes an avatar of power and death. He carries that with him to Earth, because he is still very much under the jurisdiction of Thanos. But he very quickly learns how to use and manipulate Earth values, like wit and pathos. They seem to fit him better than the others, and he carries them through the other movies and the different frameworks he finds himself in.

He also tends to carry Asgard with him, the knowledge that he’s a prince, destined to be a king, that he needs to carry himself a certain way, with that elegance, dignity and bravado.

When I see Loki in the first episode of the show, I recognize him as some of the deepest, most quintessential parts of Loki that have only been allowed to peek out on occasion before. And that is due to manipulation on Mobius’s part - Mobius makes it very clear what he expects of Loki. To get down to the very basic levels of him and find out his motivations, what makes him fundamentally himself - “What makes Loki tick?” There’s a quiet void there, and the only thing that’s being asked of Loki, for once, is that he sit down and fill that void with words - the truest and most sincere words possible.

There’s a clear and interesting divide between that phase for Loki, and the phase we see in episode two - Mobius has stopped providing that space, and in the interim, he’s made it very clear what he expects Loki to be like, what mold he’d prefer the trickster to fit into.

The hard-working, lovable scamp.

Loki is hiding his deepest self again, which we all do most of the time. Loki can’t feel that deeply and express that freely all the time. Because of the environment he’s in - which may not be any more or less free than any of the other environments he’s experienced - he expresses himself in a particular way. He is the hard-working, mischievous scamp Mobius has been pushing him to be.

I don’t think he’s any more or less himself than he’s ever been - he’s simply responding to different pressures. And the pressures of this episode press him very hard into the Neal Caffrey mold. Which is an interesting mold in itself - when I was writing White Collar fic, I made a point to distinguish who Neal was when he was with Peter and who he was under different circumstances - prison, witness protection, with Mozzie, with Kate. (I wrote an autistic Kate, and had him most freely himself when he was with her.)

Like Neal Caffrey, the Episode 2 Loki is treading a line between behaviors that will get him things because he’s useful and compliant, behaviors that will demonstrate that he’s into minor trickery for fun now and might not be getting up to anything bigger, and those bigger tricks that are definitely still running in the background. It’s the obvious balance for a trickster on a leash with an indulgent bureaucrat.

You can see that it’s a facade in the way that he is near tears when he sees the Ragnarok paperwork, but when he brings it to Mobius’s attention and Mobius expresses his sympathies, Loki says “Yes, very sad,” and then dismisses it in favor of moving on to his mischievous enthusiasm over the resulting theory he’s had.

Like all good lies, it’s built out of truth, so when I see this Loki, I see pieces of the Loki I know, just put together a little differently, which is how Loki seems to do it.

Although he’s not free as he might hope to be, and in fact threading a narrow path between a very constricting set of pressures, I do still think he’s enjoying the dropped expectations of dignity and elegance. I think he’s enjoying being in a culture that encourages him to be a geek. To go on about the things he’s passionate about and his areas of expertise. And I think that’s a lot of what unsettles people about this Loki, because that elegance and dignity have carried everywhere else with him. And I’m not going to argue that the TVA are doing anything nice for him - quite the contrary - but I still do enjoy seeing him able to be the geek he’s always had the inclination to be, in the right circumstances.

It makes me wonder, a little, how much his mother is on his mind right now, after the first episode, because if I had a guess, the last time he’s felt free to be this enthusiastic and expressive about his interests is in magic lessons with her as a child.

So. The other variant.

We know from the Lady Loki comics arc that Loki can possess other people’s bodies over the long term, and we know from kid!Loki and his murderer interacting in YA that the original occupant of a body can sometimes hang around and talk back, if only as a figment of his imagination. We know from most incarnations that Loki can go to a lot of dark places if the circumstances push him to it.

As I’ve said before, I’m intrigued by the question the difference between the two variants poses - how much different can two Lokis be before they are no longer meaningfully the same person?

We’ve got clues on both sides, of course - our scamp on a leash saying “I wouldn’t do this to myself” on the side of them being not the same person, and the vengeful goddess he’s chasing saying “I was afraid they’d found a better version of me” on the side of them being the same person.

The more I think about it, the more I’m willing to predict that this vengeful goddess is, in some way, an incarnation of Loki. But (be warned, I’m going to reference Stephenie Meyer now) it could be in as small a way as something out of The Host - a stolen body’s original personality fighting dirty against the invading spirit.

If this is something based on the character of Sylvie from the comics, it could still be anything from a person - human or Asgardian - chosen and manipulated by Loki to do his bidding, to a full-on possession, or even a body constructed for a specific purpose but developing its own personality traits.

We know this variant is a body hopper, and Mobius’s briefing mentioned that it’s an inherent ability of most Lokis to shapeshift, so there are a lot of potential explanations for this unfamiliar shape.

But the differences between the variants could also stem mostly from different experiences.

The only thing I’m at all sure of is that this variant has also been tortured by Thanos. It’s possible that she branched earlier - that the wild desperation of having freshly escaped Thanos translated into being dragged into the TVA like a cornered wildcat, on the raggedy edge and desperate enough to go all-out to get out of the collar while still in the custody of the minute men. Then, as she became familiar with the TVA in concept and execution, developed opinions and built a personality around taking them down, taking them apart the way she wished she could do to Thanos, the way Thanos did to her.

But she could also have branched later - after the destruction of Asgard, or when Thanos appeared on the refugee ship. After the worst has happened to her people. With some preexisting notion that time could have gone differently, that some things that had happened should not be allowed to happen.

I have a weak spot for interactions between incarnations of Loki in the comics, so I am incredibly eager to see the MCU’s take on this.

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Bite (Part Two)

Summary: Peter’s team is invited onto a big case in which their involvement will have serious consequences. (Part 2/3)

Word Count: 6,323

Warning: Brief mention of hard drugs and their abuse.

           “Stupid me,” you grumbled, grabbing your bottles of sparkling cider and shoving them back into your bottom left desk drawer. “I should never get cocky.” The glimmering, golden, spiralized ribbons wrapped around their necks felt like they were particularly insulting. It took a lot of self-control not to grab your scissors and snip them off for the trash.

           You’d been so excited for the case to end. So, so excited for the case to finally be over and things in the office to go back to normal, and for you to finally have that talk you and Neal decided to put off for “later”. Now you had share-size bottles of cider and a big case of plastic cups in your desk and no reason to share it and get it out.

           “Y/N,” Diana said, watching you move with terse movements. “It could’ve gone so much worse.”

           You knew that. Damn it, you knew that, you did, but you still didn’t feel much better. Neal was still alive, but your victory was taken away. Instead of being held accountable for his actions, Brady got to just take a permanent escape. There was no retribution, there was no restitution. No justice for the man he murdered or for any of the poor victims who made the mistake of trusting him. You put all your energy, all your time into this freaking case and now it was all for nothing because the coward preferred to die than go to prison, and had threatened to kill in order to force Peter to honor his wish.

           Diana spoke again, trying to get your attention. “Neal could be hurt a lot worse.”

           “Yeah, Di, I know he could’ve been,” you said through gritted teeth. “I still wish that ass were still here so I could kick him in the goddamn face for putting a knife to my friend’s throat.”

~~~ Bite ~~~

           Brady tried to arrange a meeting as soon as possible, but Neal, playing his enthusiasm down to be sure not to jump too high, managed to delay the second rendezvous to Wednesday afternoon. According to the artist, the embezzler wasn’t happy with waiting but had more decorum than to insist that a man not even in his employ drop everything when called, and this gave you time to implement the operation you had spent the last week preparing for.

           Peter had a thorough game plan. Neal as going to be wearing a wire fully concealed by his clothes, and the techs knew to thread the microphone so that it was covered by his tie in case he was patted down. Stealth aside, Peter, Madeline, and Ruiz were all confederates in Brady’s company suite, Damien had the back exits and fire escape covered, Matt and Diana were in the lobby looking busy, and you and Jones were in the van, coordinating all teams.

           You had executed plenty of highly successful operations before with less manpower, but this one somehow went so wrong that you weren’t even sure how. Neal went in without even acknowledging your confederates, and he arrived separately from your unmarked vehicles. There was nothing linking him to the bureau. Brady received him with the smarmiest facsimile of hospitality you’d ever heard and invited him into his office.

           The first five minutes were tense for all of you. You, especially, were feeling particularly wound up. Fidgeting your knee made Jones give you a look, but not being able to do anything was one of the worst assignments you could have possibly gotten. Neal made friendly with Brady, and Brady brought up how there was a fed questioning his practices. Peter made a petty comment which somehow helped to relax your nerves, and Brady hypothetically asked Neal what experience he might have with nosy feds.

           After that, it went quiet. To occupy yourself, you imagined what expressions Neal might be making, what gestures, what body language he was using to say-without-saying that the feds weren’t as smart as he was.

           The quietness lasted too long. Twenty seconds. Thirty.

           “Is anyone else hearing anything?” Matt asked with his voice low, calm but concerned.

           You turned on the switch allowing for you and Jones to talk over the communicators. “Our bugs aren’t the problem,” you answered to everyone, glad that someone else was the one to ask. Even after you responded, there was still no noise from Neal, or anyone in the office with him. “Damien?”

           “Here,” Ruiz’s agent reported.

           You frowned nervously. Something was off. “Neal, if you can hear, cough.”

           There was still nothing – not just the absence of a cough, but the absence of any audio at all. It sounded louder than anything before it had, like white noise. With the rest of the earpieces fully functional, that made it clear something was very wrong.

           “Peter, how far are you from the office?” Jones asked, standing up as you did the same and getting his sidearm from the collapsible table.

           No answer came, even when Jones tried again, this time asking for Ruiz, and then for Madeline. Diana answered when prompted, but none of the wires in Brady’s suite were responding.

~~~ Bite ~~~

           CSI found a signal jammer in one of Brady’s desk drawers after the body had been taken away, which explained why you had lost contact with your team. As soon as your team leaders realized that they couldn’t contact Neal or any of their backup, they stormed the office.

           You got the chance to read Peter’s statement. He had moved impulsively, rashly, before Ruiz had made the same call. He was the first to enter, and he had kicked the door in to do so. Neal had been put down on his knees with a bloody lip, and the embezzler had held a sharp hunting knife to Neal’s throat. Neal was begging him not to do it. Your heart clenched when you read and it almost made you put the paper down, but it had gone so far sideways that you needed to know in case you were facing a review. Once Brady saw Peter’s gun and knew that he wasn’t leaving, he raised the knife and charged the agent. Peter had to shoot him twice before he fell, and he was dead before Ruiz got into the room.

           Neal was able to report later that he had been made since before he even entered the building. It wasn’t a problem with the specific operation – it was that Seamus Brady had known exactly what Neal and Peter were up to, and he had turned the tables, using the con to lure Neal into an ambush. Ruiz went on what you would call a rampage and if Peter hadn’t been busy making sure that Neal was okay, and stunned by the blood on his own hands, you were sure he would’ve been laying into everyone, too. There had to be a leak somewhere in the bureau, either in the WCCD or in Organized Crime. Hughes heard the case, heard Neal was sent to the hospital and Peter had been forced to fire, and ordered everyone off. Ruiz’s division chief did the same, and the two together disbanded the Brady task force.

           Neal went to the hospital to be checked out and was released within a few hours. Peter drove him home and then went back to Brooklyn, where he called in on Thursday and claimed to be sick. No one bought it, but no one bought him on it, either. Peter hadn’t done anything wrong, but the cost of protecting himself was staggering, and in your division you rarely, if ever, had such an event occur. No one could blame the man for wanting to stay home with Elizabeth for a day or two. Similarly, Hughes called Neal and said that he didn’t need to come in on Thursday, and on Friday morning, Neal called in sick, as well.

           A brass from over Hughes’ head came and questioned Peter’s team that Friday. You, Diana, and Jones put your heads together so you could give as clear a picture as you could, but you had missed so much that all you could really offer was a photocopy of the statement Peter wrote and a promise to forward one of Neal’s once the conman issued his own. You went to Organized Crime for just a couple of minutes, saw Madeline at her desk, and compared notes. The same steps were being taken in their division as in yours, but they had even less to offer because Ruiz had been behind.

           Peter and Neal both returned to the office on Monday. Peter had rebounded, for the most part, but Neal looked like he had hardly slept. It didn’t help that OPR also came to the WCCD on Monday, opening an investigation into who tipped off Brady. Your brain knew that the vast majority of OPR agents were well-intentioned and following orders, but after everything that happened with Fowler, having them around made you feel like your office had a roach problem.

           The entire week passed in slow motion, and as it did, you watched Peter grow both stable and weary – stable as he accepted what he had been forced to do, and weary as he accepted that, yet again, he had to look over his shoulder for a traitor within the bureau. It was a heavy weight on all of you, but none of you felt it more than the Burke-Caffrey duo, and you wished you knew how you could help. While Peter at least recovered from the ambush itself, you saw Neal moving in the opposite direction. He pulled away from everyone, preferring quiet and solitude. He was willing to spend time with Peter during lunch breaks, and make small talk when prompted, but he didn’t act like the social butterfly he usually was and he didn’t return your friendly attempts at flirting.

           It hurt to watch him withdraw. You hadn’t seen him doing such a thing since Kate had died, but even this was on a completely different dimension. When the jet exploded, Neal emotionally withdrew but he wanted to seem like he was fine. He slapped on a veneer of happiness to hide the anger and devastation, and he used friendships to distract himself from how badly it hurt to be alone with his thoughts. This was different – he was physically present, but he wasn’t making any attempts at acting as he normally did.

           While waiting for the Brady case to make another move, you had started to complain to yourself that your “later” wasn’t going to ever come. Now, as he turned down offers to leave the building for lunch, failed to reciprocate any signs of interest, and rebuffed any attempts to have a conversation that didn’t strictly revolve around work, you were thinking that it really might not ever happen. Worse than thinking that the romantic potential might go unfilled was the hurt you felt at the threat of losing a good friend.

           The second week after Neal was ambushed, OPR left the WCCD in peace without any answers as to who betrayed the team, Peter was able to lower his figurative hackles, and Neal started to reengage – but, like with Kate, it was just a veneer. He started to banter with Peter and talk to you, but nothing went deeper than the surface and even though he acted like normal, happy, healthy Neal Caffrey, that was all it was. Acting.

           It wasn’t up to you to decide how quickly he needed to get over a near-death experience, and you knew that. You never thought you had the right to try. But, you did have the right to worry, as long as you didn’t shove it onto him, and so you worried to yourself while keeping your eyes on him. Unfortunate as it was, Neal was no stranger to near-death experiences. When you compared what happened during that case to what had almost happened in the past, you couldn’t understand why it would have shaken him up so much. Getting a bullet blocked by a Bible in front of his chest, having the air sucked out of a sealed room, almost boarding a doomed plane, being in an apartment with an assassin, confronting and being placed in a variety of nearly-fatal situations by Adler, and a number of other close calls hadn’t shaken him up for more than a couple days, so it mystified you how one sole creep with a knife had a more profound impact on Neal than losing Kate.

~~~ Bite ~~~

           After two weeks, you were done thinking about “later”. You would’ve happily taken what you had before it went down and been grateful to have the old Neal back. You laid in bed on Saturday night wondering who you would find when you went to work the next Monday. Would your friend be back at his desk, or was it going to be the shellshocked victim? If it were the latter, was he going to be ready to accept the support that you had already tried to offer?

           While thinking about him, you did come to an important epiphany. You figured out what made this near-death experience so much worse than the others: someone Neal trusted had been the one to cause it. Brady had held the knife and he was guilty of all of his actions, for sure, but he wouldn’t have lured out and tried to hurt Neal if it hadn’t been for someone in the FBI tipping him off to the operation. Neal had come to respect the individuals who worked in the division, and although he wasn’t going to try to move into the office, he felt comfortable and safe within its walls. That sense of safety had been ripped away, and he didn’t have the option of avoiding the space that now felt dangerous.

           You should’ve thought of it sooner. OPR had made your skin crawl, but you had been focusing your energy on the wrong thing. A leak in the office unsettled you, but you had a clean record, no gripes with anyone, and your neck wasn’t sticking out off a perilous ledge. You had no reason to fear the leak except for on the basis of principle. Neal, however, had a felony conviction, a long list of people who may want him hurt or dead on principle or for revenge, and was frequently enlisted as the WCCD’s personal piece of criminal bait.

           What would it feel like to not feel safe at work? To know there was a knife in your back and not know who put it there? If you were in his position, you thought that paranoia might be crippling. You also thought you’d have no choice but to rely emotionally on your friends, the ones you knew for certain would never harm you, not withdraw from them. Surely Neal knew some people that it wasn’t – Peter, whom he’d known in one capacity or another for going on a decade; Diana and Jones, for almost two years. Certainly, he knew you’d never try to get him killed. Maybe you didn’t have as long of a history as he had with Peter, but you had a history, nonetheless, and it was a good one. If anyone were going to rat him out, it would have to be someone from Ruiz’s side of the task force, or maybe someone who accessed the plans and files without actually being assigned to the team.

           Fear wasn’t rational, you knew that, and you knew Neal did, too. He was too clever about people not to know how powerful emotions could be. That didn’t mean it was a good thing for him to be socially isolating himself to any degree. Cases like this were when he should be keeping closer to his friends than ever. If he wasn’t sure about who those friends were, then you were just going to have to show him.

           You woke up early on Sunday morning and Googled a few minutes to find a breakfast restaurant in Neal’s radius that looked particularly delicious, and then you made the trip to the west side of Manhattan as the sun was still rising. You couldn’t keep waiting for him to get better and pretending to be fooled by the way he acted like he was fine at work. He was your friend, damn it, and friends took friends out for breakfast and made them talk when they were distressed. Neal had had more than two weeks to come around on his own. Time to give him a gentle push. If he were reticent, then you’d just have to push a little harder and prove you’d catch him. Like an emotional trust fall.

           It was a little after seven when you got to June’s. You weren’t trying to blitz attack Neal, but you did want to get to him before he left the house on his own plans. One of June’s cars was gone, so you pulled into the driveway, knowing you wouldn’t be here long. You parked and turned off your car, then double-checked that nothing valuable was left visible from the windows before unbuckling your seatbelt.

           Before you got out of the car, you looked up to June’s house to admire the old building and saw motion on the porch. For just a heartbeat you thought Neal might have seen you pulling in and came out to meet you, but then you realized the person coming out had long hair and was wearing a shimmering black dress. To each his own, but they were five foot six, tops.

           You stayed put to assess. It felt uncomfortably like spying and the agent in you was uncomfortably okay with that. The person turned around and you didn’t recognize her face. Her hair was a little snarled and her dress had some oddly-placed wrinkles. You spent a lot of time at the office, but not so much that you didn’t know what a walk of shame looked like.

           “Maybe I should have texted ahead,” you said to your empty passenger seat, somewhat amused. It looked like Neal had a way of coping, after all.

           She walked off the porch and went to the street, looking down at her hands. You were trying to avoid the awkwardness of being seen, so you pressed yourself back against your seat and watched her through the side mirror when she came into view. The lady didn’t even look at your car, instead moving her fingers on her phone.

           “Wait,” you said softly, narrowing your eyes to look closer. She wasn’t holding a phone, the motions of her fingers weren’t right.

           Since she wasn’t even looking, you shifted around up onto one knee to look directly out the rear window. She got to the sidewalk from the driveway and started going east, towards Broadway, and as she turned to follow the street you got a better look at what she was holding. It was a wad of cash, and she was counting the bills.

           You turned back around and dropped into your seat, narrowly avoiding giving your thigh a hard knock on the steering wheel.

           A woman leaving Neal’s address, as June isn’t home, while in last night’s clothes and counting bills.

           You felt breathless. What were you supposed to say, to yourself or to Neal, about what you had seen? Breakfast was off the table. You pulled your seatbelt back over yourself and started the car, leaving him none the wiser to your visit, so you could have time to think.

~~~ Bite ~~~

           You stalled on talking to Neal for days. There were four very long days, almost an entire business week, where you wracked your brain trying to come up with another explanation for what he was doing. Neal freaking Caffrey hooking up with an… escort? There was no way, absolutely no way. Okay, so you supposed it made sense that if he needed something to lift his spirits, sex worked for most everyone. But even if you assumed that his looks and intellect and charm had suddenly become completely useless in the world of romance and sex (and you were one hundred percent sure that wasn’t the case), there was no way he was stupid enough to risk everything he had just to get laid. Victimless or not, solicitation of a prostitute was breaking the law and if anyone found out, Neal would go straight back to prison.

           So you just kept telling yourself that it wasn’t what it had looked like. You kept telling yourself that you misread the situation, that there was some important piece of context you just weren’t aware of, and you kept trying to think of what it might be. Because you were trying so hard to convince yourself of that other piece’s existence, you resisted the urge to conclude he was seeing a prostitute – because if you came to that conclusion, you were legally obligated to report it. And if you reported it, and Neal couldn’t factually disprove it, then your friend was going back to prison for a crime that you didn’t personally believe should be a crime in the first place.

           The problem was that it had been four days, and you couldn’t think of anything to explain why Neal had seen a woman out early in the morning with a going-away gift of cash. If it wasn’t solicitation, then it had to be something worse – conspiracy for a white-collar crime, maybe, or worse, drugs. Drugs would explain why she looked unkept.

           The conspiracy option seemed like the most likely bet, but Neal of all people knew how thin his ice was, and he wasn’t going to start tap dancing on it by relying on strangers not to narc. He had a small circle of people whom he trusted. You were reasonably confident that you’d met everyone on the list, and the woman whom you’d seen leaving wasn’t one of them. Plus, since Alex, you were pretty sure Neal learned to stop mixing business with pleasure, so it wouldn’t account for why she had stayed the night.

           Drugs only occurred to you on Wednesday, and you’d nixed it by lunchtime. You wouldn’t put it past Neal to have experimented once or twice with some less intense stuff, but you’d known him too long not to know if he had a particular vice, and he didn’t. Sometimes he smoked when he was stressed, but that was it. You carefully tried to see if there were any signs of a new habit, but Neal looked healthy, his mind was sharp, his hands were steady, and there was no discoloration anywhere on him. Addicts were good at hiding addictions, but it hadn’t been long enough for Neal to get that far down the rabbit hole, so you took comfort in knowing that he wasn’t slowly poisoning himself.

           Without those options on the table, though, there was no alternative to a prostitute. One part of you wanted to just let it go and pretend you hadn’t seen anything. It wasn’t like you’d seen them screwing so it wasn’t shirking responsibility to fail to report – you didn’t know for sure anything illegal had happened. When the worse alternatives included heroin, you were tempted to just be relieved that the most likely reality was consenting adult activity. The other part of you was just so… disappointed. You knew how clever he was. Of all the things to risk his parole over, this was what he chose?

           Being a pushover wasn’t a quality for any good agent to have. Avoiding conflicts wasn’t exactly what you were known for – you liked to handle things as they came up, rather than letting them fester. Now, though, you felt like such a wimp, cowering from a conversation you needed to have just because you were afraid of how it might go. Even that unpleasant feeling of knowing you were letting yourself down didn’t motivate you into gathering your wits and putting your foot down – it was what happened at lunch.

           You went in to get your salad from the fridge and happened to cross paths with Peter and Neal, who were already in the kitchen brewing themselves more coffee. You said a pleasant greeting to them both, putting aside the lurching feeling in your stomach when you saw Neal smile at you. He still didn’t know you’d seen anything. He didn’t know you’d spent the week trying to decide how to respond.

           “What’s good?” You asked, opening up the fridge and taking out your meal.

           “Not the coffee,” Neal quipped, earning himself a side-eye from Peter. “What about with you? You’ve seemed a little intense this week. Good case?”

           Heh, I wish. So he had noticed there was something wrong. Well, so had you – he was convincing but you weren’t fooled by his back-to-normal demeanor. “Not good as in interesting,” you said, going along with what he thought. The middle of the bureau wasn’t the place to ask Neal what the hell he was thinking, and any time when another agent was around was the wrong time. “But particularly challenging, and I think I’m close.”

           “That’s a good feeling,” Peter commented, smiling slightly. He’d always had a good work ethic. It made you happy to work under him and you felt a little bit guilty for lying. “Just don’t forget to take time for yourself.”

           “I may not be married, but I still have my own life,” you teased him. It was well-known that your boss was a workaholic. Were it not for his wife, he’d spend even more time in the office. “I might even make weekend plans.”

           You stuck your thermos in the microwave as Peter chuckled and Neal gasped in overdramatic surprise. It made you smile at the appliances. Being so tense for the last week, and worrying about Neal for the last several, had almost made you forget how much you liked your work environment and your friends.

           “Weekend plans doing what?” Neal asked, his grin just big enough to show a little flash of his front teeth.

           Your weekends were never very exciting, but at least you were able to quickly think of something that rhymed with your streaming service. “Hulu and Cthulhu,” you said smartly as the microwave dinged.

           Neal laughed. “Very cultured, Agent Y/L/N.”

           “You know it.” You clicked your tongue at him with a wink. “What about yours?”

           “Ah, I might have a friend over,” he answered smoothly, and you raised your eyebrows, wary that he was referring to a paid friend and not a real one.

           “Mozzie?” Peter guessed.

           “Sh,” Neal rebuked, glancing meaningfully between Peter and the doorway. “The walls have ears.”

           “He’s literally been here,” the investigator grumbled, forever exasperated by Haversham’s paranoid distrust of every government official in the world.

           The microwave dinged and you took your thermos out and picked up a plastic spork. “Yes, and now I bet he has PTSD,” you joked.

           “And I’m the one who has to hear all about it,” Neal complained. His tone wasn’t giving much away – he could have been either joking with you or completely serious, and somehow not knowing made it a little funnier. You were never sure what to make of Mozzie, so the ambiguity was suited to him. “Good luck on your case.”

           “And on yours, guys,” you replied as you took your lunch and went back out into the bullpen, heading for your desk to work through your break.

           It was only a couple of minutes after you sat down again that you realized Neal had deflected the question of who his friend actually was. Maybe he was just taking it for granted that you and Peter knew it was Mozzie after he hadn’t said no, but part of you just said it wasn’t that simple. The principle of Occam’s razor rarely applied to Neal – which was just unfortunate, because your life would be so much easier if it did. You needed to talk to him before he had the chance to repeat whatever he had done last weekend, because if you didn’t, then he might make a huge mistake.

~~~ Bite ~~~

           Your time to talk to him came towards the end of the day, and you didn’t even have to make up a good excuse to get him out of the building alone. Peter came by your desk an hour before the workday usually ended, almost blushing and quickly hurrying to explain how it was his turn to pick up the dog from the groomer’s and he had to hurry or the groomer would call El and then his wife would find out that he forgot a shared domestic responsibility again. Okay, so he didn’t say anything past his wife being called, but you weren’t exactly new to the office. You knew how it worked.

           Anyway, you said you’d let Hughes know where he was if you were asked, and that you could give Neal a ride back to Riverside. If he didn’t have the tracking anklet, he could take public transportation, but public transit never ended up going straight to his apartment, and it was almost an eight mile walk, and since federal plaza was already out of his radius, letting him go home alone made the U.S. Marshals all skittish. It was easier to just carpool with everyone’s favorite ex-con in the passenger seat.

           Neal was usually a very animated passenger, but like his demeanor at work, he was more subdued in the car than he used to be, and another pang hit you in the chest as you wondered if he behaved like this in Peter’s car, too. You wanted so badly to believe he wasn’t just choosing to shut you out, specifically.

           “I have satellite,” you said casually while waiting at a traffic light. You felt like your heart was pounding, and between that and the emotional chest ache, you almost felt like a trip to the ER should be in order. “I decided to start paying. Better music, less commercials.”

           Neal shrugged. “It’s just a few more minutes.” Except in rush hour traffic, it was actually closer to fifteen. In spite of his lacking enthusiasm, he took the hint after a few seconds and reached for the stereo controls, turning the satellite stations on and flipping between a few until he could something that wasn’t pop, rock, or rap.

           The music made the ride less awkward and you kicked yourself for it in hindsight. At least when the silence had seemed loud, it would’ve been easier to break it with words instead of radio. June’s address drew closer and as it did, you had the sinking feeling that you weren’t going to have the courage to say anything, no matter how serious you knew the situation was.

           Too many feelings.

           “Can I come inside?” You asked, apparently out of the blue, glancing across the car at him. Neal’s eyebrows were up and his lips slightly parted when he looked back from the window, surprised as you’d ever seen him. “We don’t talk much anymore,” you lied with a little shrug. “Haven’t had much time for it, I guess. But we could do coffee.”

           Neal took a second to respond, and you were sure that he was going to politely reject you. Instead, his expression became a little more open as he considered and dropped a hand onto his knee. “Yeah, that sounds nice,” he agreed, and then looked back out the window.

           After that, it became less painfully uncomfortable, at least on your end. Invitation secured, you stopped worrying. You were going into his home – backing out wasn’t an option. What was an option was doing what you could to try taking care of your friend, and hopefully that would include setting him on a better direction and figuring out what the hell had happened in Brady’s loft. You even felt hopeful that in a couple of weeks’ time, things would be back to normal and your friendship would rebound like none of this had ever happened.

           You made it to Riverside and fortunately found curbside parking. June had a driveway, which was a luxury for a Manhattan residence, but she also had two cars already in it and you hated feeling like you were blocking anyone in. Neal reiterated the welcome for you to come inside and you went in with him, looking around June’s first floor with curiosity before following the artist up to his rented space. It looked cleaner than it usually did… not that Neal was a slob – far from it, in fact – but the penthouse looked a little less homey than usual and it was extra concerning.

           You took your shoes and coat off by the door after Neal hung his jacket on the coat rack. “Italian or Ethiopian?” He asked, striding into the small kitchen and opening up the cupboards to the left of the fridge.

           “Ethiopian,” you replied and watched him take a name-brand bag of coffee grounds off of the shelf. You’d never had it before but Neal had good taste.

           While he brewed coffee, you took a quick look through the parlor section of the open-floor plan, seeing the records and books that he had opted to keep accessible. Neal’s tastes in music were in line with what you would have expected. He liked instruments, and when it came to singing, he liked classics. His reading interests were more eclectic, but that, you supposed, was part of how he kept his skills up. Neal was very proud of his excellence in art, but he also went out of his way to be a sort of jack of all trades so that he could connect with a mark on some level, no matter what it was they were into.

           Once you couldn’t hear the coffeemaker running anymore, you treaded to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair to sit. Neal brought two mugs over a moment later. “It’s how you like it,” he remarked, setting one in front of you and sitting only a couple of feet away with his.

           A real smile came to your face. “You remember.”

           “Of course I remember,” he said, giving you an almost playful look like you should know better. “I never forget a coffee order.”

           “I thought it was names you never forget.”

           “I never forget either,” he replied without missing a beat, smiling slightly over the edge of his mug.

           “Silly me,” you commented. The roast tasted almost like a heavy tea, but it was good. You put it down on the table, then reached for your belt and took your badge off. You put it facedown next to your coffee and Neal’s attention was rapt.

           “Is there unofficial business I should know about?” He asked. His tone and words were light, but you could see a very subtle change in his face that you would have completely missed if you hadn’t been watching for it.

           “I don’t want you in trouble and I’m not gonna start any,” you responded, tilting your head. Neal had taught you that a lot of crime was actually in shades of grey, and after Peter had begun to loosen up, you started thinking that maybe there was really something to the lessons Neal occasionally espoused. One of them was that sometimes the ends justified the means, as long as the means fit within a moral framework that prioritized human wellbeing. “I saw something on Sunday. I came to pick you up for breakfast and there was a woman leaving. She had cash.”

           Neal put his mug down and reached for his face. Slowly, he rubbed his hands over his eyes, and then his cheeks, his head down tiredly. You were curious how he would play it, and simultaneously hoped he wouldn’t try to play you at all.

           “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to read it,” you continued quietly. “But you have to know that the most obvious reading isn’t worth going back to prison over.”

           Neal drew in a long, tight breath, through which his shoulders barely moved. “No,” he agreed, sounding absolutely exhausted. “It’s not.” He moved his hands, and then you saw in his eyes the same look that he’d had after the op went south weeks ago. He looked like his spirit had been beaten down, and he was so weary he couldn’t summon the energy to hold his shoulders up. “It’s not what it looked like.”

           “Tell me what it was, then,” you prompted gently. It wasn’t your intention to violate his privacy or push very far. Despite the symbolic gesture you had made, your badge was still right there and you were still an agent of the FBI. You weren’t interested in that being a factor in how much or how little Neal chose to reveal to you – you wanted to be his friend first and foremost. But you also weren’t sure how much you truly wanted to know, or how much Neal would tell you regardless of whether or not you were a fed.

           The artist rested his elbow on the table, still turned towards you in his chair. After he lowered his eyes from your face, he didn’t look up for a couple of very long moments. Because you knew him well, you waited patiently. If he had decided he wasn’t going to tell you anything, then he wouldn’t be looking away from you. Neal was very good at issuing a challenge without being overtly confrontational, and right now, he wasn’t challenging your right to know, just… figuring something out in his head. Thinking.

           “I want you to know that I didn’t intend for this to happen,” he said finally, lifting his head. His usually kissable lips were frowning. “And I tried resisting.”

           That made you frown. What was there to resist? Coercion? “Resisting what?” You asked him worriedly.

           That worry only increased tenfold when he answered, “Blood.”

~~~~~

~~~~~

 A/N: This is part two of three. There will be one more chapter after this.

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