This meant to be shorter, I think. And for some reason (yeah, even though I wrote this) I have no clue what this piece is trying to say. I don't own.
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Prima Facie
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It starts off easy, simple, and almost straightforward.
He is standing in Neal Caffrey's world with the lights twinkling above his head, the floors are shined to reflect and even the air smells better, sweeter on the flat of his tongue. And it is never just a streak of the conman's lucky stars aligning themselves in the sky, it is that and so much more.
It is the earth tilting a little differently, it is the sun getting closer and not at all.
"It was you."
And at first glance, it comes like a revelation of the century.
"Interpol never even suspected, but it was you. You pulled that job in Rome."
Peter is genuinely frowning, brows creased together in a pull of almost frustration, eyes stern as he tries to unravel the knot at the centre of one Neal Caffrey. Like he thinks that's all it takes, like he thinks he will be the to solve another mystery of the universe after all.
Neal smiles with a tilt of his head and Peter thinks he just might.
"You think too highly of me." Neal shakes his head lightly, laughter winding carefully around his words, "I'm just a man armed with a smile, Peter. I'm not all that special, nothing compared to the City of the seven hills at the very least."
He takes the glittering champagne from Neal's offering hands, and while Peter has always been a beer kind of guy, cheap wine at the very most, he thinks he can stay in Neal Caffrey's world for just a little longer. If only to find his initials digging deep into somewhere unexpected.
Instead of pushing away, Peter takes a sip and catches Neal's eyes from the rim of his flute. It tastes like he has the world at his feet and the best conman walking along side of him on a straight and narrow path.
It feels good, it feels right, it is everything he doesn't imagine he can have.
Neal tips back his own, matching him one for another before he scans the wide room with a broad sweep of his eyes, finding no one who is remotely catching on to the two of them, standing discreet. Dipping his head down, his mouth too close to Peter's ear, Neal adds.
His voice a low murmur, branding hot air against his skin like Peter has always been his to own.
"And let me tell you," he steps back a little, just enough for Peter to look at him in the eyes, "it works better than any disguise you can imagine on me."
And then he is stepping back, for real, back into the crowd, dark hair slicked away from his high set brows, shoulders set perfect underneath his suit.
It goes without saying that of course Neal knows just what depths Peter's imagination has taken a plunge to. But that is a given, that has always been a given with the way he isn't willing to look away, not even from his fading silhouette slipping further away.
000
Chaos follows, always, like clockwork.
Neal is the tick while everything else becomes the tock coming in a fraction of a beat late. Or in time to whatever count Neal has this to. The next tick, another tock, and so it goes.
Halfway across the room, there is a man (a con artist that fits into the scenery, nearly blurry around the edges if it isn't for Neal just a step behind his every move, pinning him for the scam that he is.)
They move like there are patterns etched into the marble of the floor telling them one way from another. Peter pretends it all makes sense, Peter imagines Neal understands.
His eyes trace their chase, cautious but near curious like they are making new friends for the first time. They smile, they shake hands, they introduce themselves with their silver tongues lashing. And in his ear bud, he can hear every word to match those moving lips.
It goes something like this.
"I have to admit, the set up you've got here, Mr. Devore, it's nice."
Neal ducks his head a little with a smile that is just short of shy, Peter almost believes him. And while opposite of what Neal thinks, the FBI doesn't actually have a secret handshake. Meanwhile, he is sure con artists like Neal and his friends certainly do. It is in the way they carry themselves, all pleasing charms and dedication in their hearts, sewn at the seams of their nice suits.
"I think you must be mistaken, Mr?"
"It's Nick Halden, but call me Nick. And let's not kid, I hear you were one of the better ones."
"Now, you surely don't mean that."
"Except I do."
"No, you really don't." The man smiles firmly, slow and sure and it splits up the bland face into something more recognizable, something that Peter sees as a blatant show of an upper hand. Neal takes a step back like he's been burned. "Can I call you Neal instead, Mr. Caffrey?"
"…Since you already seem to know my name, you aren't going to be convinced with a no, I presume."
"You are betraying a lot of people this way."
"I'm disappointing a lot of people if I did otherwise." Neal replies like that if has always been there, like he isn't actually still at the top of his game in the midst of all this play pretend. "But at least I have the decency to use my own aliases, George."
Neal takes a step to his left, drawing the man to the right and easily picks two flutes of champagne from a waiter's tray, gleaming silver beneath the lights.
"I work best off of other great artists, I thought you would appreciate the reputation I was building you."
The man takes the offered champagne and sips. Neal swallows the rest, glare perfect in his eyes, like he is backed up against the wall with no choice but to cower. "So what now?"
"Tell you friends to stay."
The man isn't violent but Neal sees, in the way he looks at him, that he is very much capable of violence. He has seen men like him and desperation can drive many things. Neal can see the line of the gun beneath the suit, the shape of trigger-pulling fingers wrapping around the drink he has tilted at him.
"Only if you do, George."
Neal's mouth stretch apart in a smile, like the cat that is still licking the taste of a fresh kill from his lips, blood and feathers whole on his tongue.
There is a press of metal against his back, firm in the face of Neal's gentle charms.
"Don't move. FBI. You're under arrest."
Peter steps out from behind the man's blind spot. The perpetrator puts both hands up in a slow and reluctant reflex even as the rest of the division comes to form a half circle around the man with the features that is becoming more and more like himself, instead of another copycat Caffrey under a different name.
One agent cuffs him as another reads him his rights. And while the confused party goers are dispersed through the exits, the gun inside his coat is bagged as evidence, so is the champagne glass he has been holding when they made the arrest.
Peter steps up beside Neal, standing off to the side to avoid the FBI and their cleanup job.
And on closer inspection, Neal Caffrey still plays perfect right on spot.
000
It ends well, more or less. It always does, it's like a thing when Neal is involved.
And isn't he always? There's really no other way to think that he can be innocent in all this.
"…It's disconcerting. You just arrested me."
Peter turns his head to the man standing next to him and instead of having his gaze returned, he easily catches Neal looking directly at the man being taken away.
"George Devore, and he wasn't even one of your good ones." Peter replies and it is probably just as disconcerting to see laughter in Neal's eyes when his mouth is pulled into a firm flat line. It isn't a revelation but it comes close, Peter states. "You enjoyed that."
It takes a fraction of a second before Neal finally quirks his head back at Peter, giving him a silent really from beneath his lashes, like they need words to explain all this. "Don't look so surprised, I was tempted to do worst."
"And by worst, you mean you were going to have him believe he could con the Neal Caffrey."
Neal shrugs, half smile curling at the corner of his lips as he slides his hands into his pants pocket.
"We all have ambitions."
And Peter doesn't need him to spell it out for him, he has always been able to make sense of those Caffrey clues.
"But he crossed a line."
"We may be thieves, Peter, but there is a conduct, honour in the way we work. He took my alias, and if you haven't caught on so fast, I would have got him to offer me a cut."
Peter knows it can be about a lot of things, just not the money. Neal doesn't care for that. Except he is as horrible at this as he is with tears, and while Neal doesn't look like he's about to cry, he handles it all the same: muster his best and expect the worst.
As gentle as he tries, his retort comes nonetheless.
"Glad you're making friends out in the world, Neal. I can pull in a few favours for you when I put you back. You might even get to share a cell with him."
Neal shakes his head, smile just a little sad and asks, "Take me home?"
Peter nods.
000
"Remember when I told you to look for my initials under polarized lights?" Neal asks, head tipping back against the seat, he probably doesn't see Peter nod in the dark, he probably doesn't care even if he doesn't. "I expected you to check, and when you did, I thought I would be okay with it, to have you see the NC tucked into the corner of one of my best works, you know…"
Peter won't say he is sorry and Neal doesn't expect him to. This goes both ways for all the crimes Peter knows Neal has committed. It's trust, it's faith, and it's both if not neither of those when things come to count.
"But I wasn't."
And it sounds like he has left the magic back at their current crime scene because Neal sounds hurt, hollow even. It can be retaliation, it can be a show of hand, Peter isn't sure but Neal sucks in a soft breath, bites his bottom lip just so (and the FBI agent in him is still trying to guess whether that is his tell or a distraction.)
"Rome wasn't just me," and he isn't monotone, it just sounds like resignation, "but you won't find proof either way."
Peter doesn't pull over, even when he wants to because feigning control is never easy, hasn't been since he has had the real life Caffrey sitting on his couch, petting his dog, and talking to his wife like this is all supposed to make sense. It doesn't, mind you, it still doesn't.
"What good does this do you?"
He drives ahead, expecting the worst. Because what else is he to expect? Neal hasn't even asked for immunity. (Not that he needs it, Rome isn't in Peter's jurisdiction.)
"It doesn't." Neal tugs his tie right again like it could ever be wrong and they are doing well for a pair who has never tried for once in their life to make things right, not with each other, not quite anyway. "But you asked me once."
He catches Peter's gaze in the rear view mirror, and his eyes look like the summer sky in the dark. The green light changes into yellow, Peter doesn't stop.
He doesn't dare for the fear that he can't when it matters the most.
"And I didn't tell you the whole truth, Peter." He says his name just so, puts too much stress on the last r. "I didn't tell you the temptation never stopped."
As with everything else, he can suspect the smile in the mirror is a con, and in all the ways possible, it will always be a con. But the faith between them, it isn't something easy to feign. Maybe Neal can, maybe he is just that good after all, but Peter wants to believe.
Peter wants to think Neal doesn't want to be that good.
Maybe, this is him coming clean.
XXX Kuro