Surface Art
It's icy cold outside. It's going to be a white Christmas all right, but most of New York dreaming of anything but.
Peter watches Neal gazing soulfully at the painting in the middle of the room and tries to work out how to get the man to give in and spend Christmas Eve in bed instead of painting... what ever it is he's painting. Neal needs rest, and warmth, and medication, and a lot of all of them. Peter knows this all too well; his partner may not admit it, but he does have the Bug (known to one and all as the Bah-Humbug) That's Going Around.
Peter's been here doing the 'look after my personal con' bit for a couple of hours now, and has to admit that Neal is less trouble, if more troubling, that the woman he loves more than life but who doesn't believe that misery loves company and actually threatened him with death by candy cane and poisoned eggnog..
Poor Elizabeth... she's down with the Bug-Humbug, as are most of her employees, most of her customers, Hughes, Diana, Jones, half the White Collar office, most of Organized Crime, all of Homicide and IT. And the uniformed police. And every department Store Santa for miles around.
And the general public. Most of New York, it somehow seems, got into the business of 'giving', even if it was only flu and even more bad temper that usual.
Oh yes, and the criminal classes did too, if the latest statistics are anything to go by. And if they aren't, the pathetic, petulant, high-on-home-remedies and even more paranoid than usual phone calls from Peter's other personal con definitely are. Mozzie - of course - thinks it's all some kind of plot to ruin his Festive Plans by The Man.
And The Man he is incomprehensibly accusing has pretty much fled from the grouchy, sniffling, coughing, complaining, congested, grinch-like lot of them to the only person he knows who is actually pretty good - or at least bearable - when sick. Peter suspects that this was less to do with being stoic and more his partner's simple refusal to acknowledge anything that makes him less glossily impervious, less self-sufficient, more vulnerable, more...
Imperfect.
Like the half-finished painting Neal is staring mournfully at. Peter isn't sure what it was - something pop-arty, he thinks, or that could just be the combination of fever, too much mulled wine and what he sincerely hopes is Neal's over-the-counter medication (rather than whatever Mozzie doubtless tried to share with him and El).
Because if that is supposed to be a face under that red hat...
"S' not working today, don't y...you think, P'der?"
"It's amazing." Hey, it's not that much worse than some of the half a million canvases he spends too much of his life tracking down... okay, yes it is. It looks like a cross between Diana in a snit and a reindeer with a secret sorrow. But he's not here for art appreciation, he's here to play nursemaid badly, to try and get Neal to settle down and sleep Christmas and the flu away. "So why don't you stop now and take a nap? I'm sure it'll still be there when you wake up and can look at it with a clear -"
"Clear... right now." Neal shakes his head - very very slowly, as if it hurts. His voice is husky, thick and carefully articulated as if he's trying to hide the stuffed misery that makes the rest of New York sound like disgruntled elves with foghorns. "I'll just..." He reaches for another brush, and painstakingly adds a splat of red to the Diana-reindeer's head. "Thasss... better."
"So who is it?"
"Can't... you tell?"
"You know me and modern art, Caffrey." Or at least, that's Peter's excuse and he's sticking to it.
Neal huffs, drawing a hand across his forehead and leaving multi-colored fingerprints on his skin. Unlike everyone else, who turns red of eye and nose, snuffly and sneezy and queasy and querulous, Neal simply gets 'pale and interesting', big-eyed and sadly soulful when ill. El thinks it's totally unfair. Peter thinks it's a mercy to law enforcement that the man can't replicate it deliberately when healthy.
"It's... George, 'fcourse."
Peter blinks. George?
"George...B-bayley... you know... oh. No, shhhh!" Neal does a wobbly turn towards him, putting a finger to his lips, and looks at him with wide, blurred blue eyes; the slippery sweetness in them would be touching if Peter thought for one minute that Neal isn't at least two-thirds out of his head, and refusing to admit it. "You don't know him. You don't wanna know him. No... not your kind of..." he blinks, and smiles. "He was not fun, P'der."
"Really."
"Mozz... always said he wath...was..." Neal stops, thinking hard. Peter takes the opportunity to gentle remove the wavering (and dripping) brush from his fingers and starts steering him towards the bed, "perfect for seasonal cons." He stops again. "Alleged seasonal cons."
Okay, this is making less sense than Mozzie's last phone call involving singing snowmen and the Chrysler building. Peter gingerly touches his friend's forehead - around the pain smears - and isn't too happy about the heat. "Neal, I really think you should rest now, just until you feel more like yourself."
"Never feel quite like... tha', P'der," Neal says cryptically as Peter pushes him gently down on the bed. " George, he was... minima..Jus' too minimin... minimalist. I always said. Not my bes' work anyway." He gazes up at Peter earnestly. "Not like Steve. G-good ol'... Steve Tab'n'ckle. One of my... my masterpieeeces..." His voice slurs, and he tips a little sideways, then frowns pulls himself upright with an effort and at least tries to crisp it up. "Not sick. Not sick. Never sick. Can't afford..."
"Your... oh, you mean..." Alisases, Peter guesses. Aliases both known and unknown, and he has a sinking feeling that the latter are something he ought to want to know about. But... "Neal, you might want to tell me about this later. When you're feeling better." Or might not, more likely.
"Did a lot of different canvasses, didn' I? All style, P'der, all color, light, shade... tha' all. Jus' canvases for marks to see what they wan' to see." Neal smiles a little, an erratic and almost touching (okay, and definitely alarming) trace of pride in his work showing through the flu-made cracks in the gloss and the control. "Steve was photo-somethin'... ph'to-real... photo-realist." He nods firmly, and then winces, and Peter winces with him. "M'best work went that way sometimes... Steve an', an Jon'thon, you don' know Jon'thon, and S'mon. All hard light and sh... sharp 'dges. I'm good at light, P'der."
"I'm sure you are. Neal, I don't think you really want -"
"M'not an artist, never was... 'nough of one, anyway. A stylist, more... but I'm good at styles, P'der." Neal nods again, very seriously and holding his head as he does. "Then... there was Victor. You ever meet Victor?"
"Can't say I have."
"Good, 'cause you'd have 'rested him too. Didn' want him in jail." Neal frowns. "Needed somethin'... harder there. Made of grfti - grffi - graffit-something." He looked up again. "Not one... my best p'riods."
"It wasn't meant to be, Neal."
"I mean," Neal says carefully, as if to a slow learner, "art periods. Art styles. Jail doesn't have styles." He brooded for a minute. "Wouldn't bring out George in jail. Just Neal. Always grffi - graffiti Neal."
"I see." No, Peter doesn't, but arguing isn't going to get Neal to sleep before he says even more that he really, really shouldn't. He really really doesn't want to spend Christmas explaining to his flu-ridden wife that his present for Neal was yet another warrant.
"Or not art." A small, secret smile lights up the fever-bright eyes. "My first Daniel wasn' any period. Daniel was... don't tell Mozzie. Never tol' Mozzie, P'der. Mozzie's a snob. He is," he went on, with addled force, "so'm I 'bout some things. But people... lots of people... like them."
"Like what?" He knows he shouldn't ask, but he does.
"Them. Mozzie hates them."
"Them what..."
"...Shhhh! S'a secret. FBI'd never ever ever believe..." Neal hiccups on a laugh, then turns serious. "Don' tell anyone, P'der. Lessss talk proper art 'stead. Victor ... Victor Gates, he was jus' f'Kate, a present f'Kate. Kate... she liked Victor." Neal's eyes get a little darker, shinier. "Kate had soft spot f''Merican Impression... 'mpressionist. That was Victor. I didn' care for it... not like Steve. Steve... still th'best. George was good though."
Peter is vaguely aware that the FBI agent in him ought to be taking notes - and more than vaguely aware that the friend ought to be trying to shut his ailing conman up before he said any more. "Neal..."
"Doc Parker, you 'member him. You were there. One with the heart thin'.. thing. Doc Parker, he was jus' a quick study. "Xpressionissss... somethin'."
Peter sighs. "Go to sleep, Neal. Before you tell me about someone else you don't want me to know about."
Neal stares at him for a minute, then lies back, gazing up at whatever his feverish dreams are already painting on the ceiling. Peter hopes it's something better than the Diana-George-reindeer in the red hat. "You already know... 'bout Nick."
"Nick? Nick Halden?"
"Yeah." He's slowing down, this is good. "Nick..."
"Don't tell me. Pop art."
""bstract 'illisonist. Or tha's what he was s'posed to be. 'Three-d'mension space on a two-d'mension surface'." Neal sounds like he should be using air quotes - then his lips twist wearily, and he turns his head away. "S'pose they're all like tha'... Neal too. Neal most've all."
"Don't say that. Neal's a work, and a damn good one, in progress." Peter looks down at the at his conman, artist, stylist... whichever, at the pale, flushed face and wide, too-guileless-to-be-true eyes, and isn't sure he even wants to know what is going through that fever-addled mind. "Come on, are you honestly getting maudlin on Christmas Eve about your fake identities, Caffrey?"
"Never... maudlin. Or sick. Surf'ces... don't get sick." His voice slurs again, his eyelids droop; he's drifting into sleep.
Peter watches him, then speaks, very softly, as much to himself as his definitely sick friend. "No. They don't."
He'll have to find a way to remind Neal of that. Maybe make it his present for Christmas. Tomorrow.
Or maybe New Year's Day.
Next year.
-the end-