There is a drabble version of this that I wrote for the prompt Future from my 30 Days of Writing on tumblr but I loved the idea so much I wanted to write an extended version of it. So here it is, a dark!Neal to fulfill every fangirl's fantasy (or is it just me?)!
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We live in Abandon, here in the Future
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Mozzie once warned him, when Kate wasn't his just yet (hadn't made the one mistake in her life that she couldn't undo), that every conman got their hearts broken once. Just once, no more, because by then you were supposed to learn from your mistakes and lose it (like what Mozzie had done, dug his heart out with his bare hands and never once looked back.)
But he liked this back lashing game that hurt as much as it rewarded the players still intact. He loved that this wasn't about himself, not really at least, but it was the scars that he could walk out with that he loved the most.
It was a rush (and he admit, he was an addict through and through,) because when wasn't love the biggest longest con in life?
He rolled up his sleeves, the Super Max orange a startling contrast against his eyes.
It started with getting Kate back.
That day, he stopped shaving. It took a month and a half. He returned to their apartment two days too late to find an empty Bordeaux sitting in abandon. That day, Peter Burke caught him for a second time.
Somewhere along the chase something changed.
(It might be Kate, it is probably Peter, but someone, somewhere, tells him it is Neal. And isn't it always?)
000
The drive back into civilization is almost brutal.
Cruel on Neal's part, painstaking on Peter's. Perhaps it is the birthday cards every year, or the fact that he shouldn't have a felon in his car, let alone riding shotgun with or without a tracking anklet that has him bounded to a two miles radius around Peter.
Except something feels right, like this has been everything he has been working to get to.
And it might be a good deal, but it is only that. It shouldn't be making him feel that comfortable in his skin.
Peter tries small talk even when he thinks Neal has always been the one to break the front on awkward silences. But people never stay the same.
"How're you feeling?"
He expects a smile, a small joke, maybe even a grimace.
Still, nothing.
Neal doesn't look at him, he only gives a shrug of his shoulders, like it's no big deal, like he hasn't spent the last three years and eight months of his life in jail.
The fresh air is good but the laughter doesn't return to Neal's eyes for a long time after.
000
"Kate."
Peter says her name like she hasn't crossed borders to get away and something feels like tiny pin pricks piercing through his heart. Neal can't place what it really is, it may be her name or the way Peter says it, he doesn't heave.
"I promised you, I'm not going to look for her."
Neal isn't running, but maybe that's only because he is backed up at the edge of his radius. His anklet almost goes yellow and he might as well be crossing his fingers behind his back, his words are twisted with a conman's lisp.
The Marshals will be on their way once he takes one more step back, green light flashing into red, but it is Peter who finally steps back.
Brown eyes black in the New York night.
"Good, remember that."
Neal deliberately doesn't look him in the eyes, but something settles to weigh against his chest. And instead of his old ways, it comes out crooked and not at all smooth.
"I will."
He doesn't ask him to trust him.
They cut his anklet, for the first time, the next day.
000
He gives himself four years.
(Still, everything depends on Peter even when the man himself believes it otherwise. Neal smiles and brushes by, imagines a Kate still out there for him even when his focus is blurring at the seams.
He can remember her pretty eyes, he just couldn't see the love that is supposed to be there.)
The case is almost routine but Peter still stays over at his place when it strikes half past two. The sky is completely dark, there is no light breaking up along the horizon.
Neal watches as Peter stands up from the table, tells them both that's enough for one night. And he doesn't know whether Peter is playing dumb (falling for every line like the script he has in his head) or this really is as real as they come.
When he has him asleep and in his bed, short brown hair splaying over the cover of his pillows, defenceless in the face of his charms. He imagines he will lean in, whispers falling from his lips.
"Peter, you can't tell me what I can and cannot do, you see. Because you've got to know that I'll obey," he will brush his nose against the crook of Peter's neck, inhale the scent of his own soap and shampoo from the flesh, "each and every one of them."
But he doesn't say, just pulls back the covers to lie, rigid and tense, wanting but not daring to breach that thin fragile line. While no one is stupid enough to point it out, perhaps one day, it won't have to be Neal to say it out loud for himself.
Maybe, one day, Peter will.
You're the only one keeping me here. You're my shackles and my chains.
Something tightens around his heart, a noose in its own right.
000
The next time he truly sees him for who he is, Neal smiles a Caffrey smile and tells Peter Burke, the man who has caught him twice (the man who has him on a two-mile leash no more,) he will become exactly what he wants.
"It's not so bad."
Peter doesn't ask but it doesn't mean Neal himself doesn't tell him the one thing that he has always wanted to know.
That, yes, this has always been one long con.
That, yes, he has loved him from the start.
"What do you get from this, Neal?"
The smile doesn't fade like charcoal or chalk. He still looks very much like the Neal Caffrey he has first cuffed. Those blue eyes wane, those elegant hands splaying, like this is his last hand in this losing game.
"I get you, Peter."
The next day, the apartment is packed up in boxes. And it is as much of a subtle hint as it is a flag being waved from the hands of Lady Liberty.
Neal is leaving.
And it dawns on Peter that he always has another trick up his sleeves no matter how much he is drawing your eyes to those bare arms beneath the New York sun. He enters the apartment, and something nestles tight in his chest.
Neal turns around from taping down the last box and smiles that perfect Caffrey smile from the day before. "You didn't expect me to stay now, did you?"
In the endless sunlight that is filtering through, Neal's eyes are glittering an opened ocean blue. And there, in the distance, is the distinct honking of New York's traffic.
"No… I guess not." Peter looks around the room with an attempt of a smile in return but it barely reaches his lips when he finally turns to look at Neal, catching the con in his place. And he sounds almost wistful like what they had is what he has always wanted, something even Elizabeth can't give him. "No, not even after everything."
"I never passed you for someone so sentimental, Peter."
And it isn't docile Caffrey playing nice, this is Neal Caffrey at his best.
Something clicks like a final turn of the key, the very last puzzle piece fitting in its place.
"I'm in love."
Peter admits, like it's a defeat, and it brings a smile to Neal's lips.
Like this is what he has been after, like this is finally the last trick in his book.
"So am I, Peter."
He replies, and it is a slow burning triumph when he crowds him against a bare wall, where that ugly portrait has been hanging to hide the hole in the wall (now filled with cement and painted over with fresh and white.) Peter sucks in a breath, he finally sees it in his eyes, something bright and clear as the New York day outside and Neal, he never once lost control.
"I'm your mark."
Peter tells him and Neal lets out a small soft laugh before pulling back, lips grazing dangerously along Peter's jaw.
"The only score I didn't allegedly pull." He licks his lips, slick tongue running along the edge of those teeth. "I'm glad, Peter, you're the smartest men I've met. You caught on, I was almost afraid you wouldn't."
Except there is no fear, Neal doesn't know fear, Peter has the telltale signs memorized to heart. But still, it isn't a lie.
He doesn't kiss him goodbye, this isn't the end, there is only a feverish yearning burning blue when his hands finally unlace themselves from the lapels of Peter's suit, like he wants to for the life of him but can't because this is the way they are.
He takes a small step back, shortsighted resignation.
Neal doesn't look back when he turns to go, he only does his hat trick, one last time. Like the cartoon character Peter has seen waltzing his way down those steps, he is as suave as he is coy.
And this is both the revenge and his new found hope, it has always depended on Peter.
That much they both know.
He names his price.
"I want an unsanctioned manhunt, Peter, I want you to look for me."
(Like I looked for Kate goes unsaid.)
He doesn't know whether he will ever see him again but this is as cruel as he can be, as true as he has always had been. This is Neal Caffrey at his best, tying up his New York loose ends in one big elegant bow.
Neal pauses by the door with something like a wistful scowl imbedded deep in his voice, "…I would try France."
Except Neal never lets on he is anything but happy.
Peter watches him go.
000
Elizabeth once told him, when a marriage between them still resembled something more traditional, that Neal always got what he wanted. If he couldn't go outside of his two miles, he would have everything come within his radius. After all, who was Neal if he couldn't get exactly what he has been after? El has read over her husband's shoulder enough times to know.
Only, she had forgotten to tell Peter that love could manage to change all this.
Peter was a man with no temptations, he had his eyes on her ever since he could remember. It wasn't until he glanced away did he see Neal finally turning around from staring after Kate.
(Now that he could see him, the way he had always seen him, there was no turning back.)
But Neal Caffrey was a man who could convince the world to its knees with that face and his silver tongue, she thought it could go unsaid. She thought it was implied.
El also made the mistake of believing that Peter was too good of a man to live uncorrupted to Neal's ways. She hadn't thought she could be wrong.
Peter comes home the day Neal leaves.
"I'm sorry, El."
The truth is absolute, the ways to get to it is not. And sometimes, you learn to let go (when you only want to hold on) but this is the future, there is much more to come.
XXX Kuro
I wanted to hit myself at one point while I was writing this, feel free to do so.