"It's definitely you they're laughing at," Neal deduced, looking sideways with sympathy at a narrow eyed Peter, "it has to be you." He shook his head dramatically, with a mischievously insincere sympathy. "It's so hard to get good staff these days, isn't? Well…thank god I'm here." He placed a dramatically supportive hand on a glaring agent's shoulder, and grinned his wicked grin. "I mean that, I really do. I'm here for you Peter."
Before the elder of two could even muster up a glare, the kid was gone. Making a hasty, gleeful route to the source of the confusion.
A certain Clinton Jones and Diana Berrigan based confusion.
"Guys," he interrupted brightly, landing behind the two as they shrieked with laughter, over stacks of paper "fill me in here!" Diana and Clinton paused to look at each other, and then up at Neal, before bursting into choking laughter once more. Seeing Peter land himself behind their resident con man, their laughter began to actually wrack their bodies. Even Neal had to raise a brow at that.
Peter generally commanded a level of admittedly easy going, but present, respect from his people.
"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Peter asked firmly, not entirely sure he wanted to be shared with. There was a pretty good chance that these two were laughing at him, and his moustache of years gone by made an appearance in his mind's eye.
Spluttering and stammering, Diana shook her head through peals of laughter. "If you're sure you want us too boss?" she croaked out, as Clinton heaved with hysteria beside her.
Neal and Peter exchanged now rather concerned looks. The duo looked quite manic in their joviality, and neither of the two were entirely sure they wanted to know why. Their looks of concern deepened further when Hughes of all people strolled by, and waved a sheaf of similar looking papers in his hand in the four's direction. He couldn't talk, he was visibly obstructed as he swept up the stairs to his office.
Obstructed… with raucous laughter.
"Peter…what's going on here?" Neal suddenly murmured, the smile slipping off his face. The way Hughes had looked at him, and the way Jones and Diana were looking at him was rapidly divesting him of his assurance that the joke was solely on Peter.
Not answering, Peter chose to stare down Jones. He was easier to break than Diana. "Unless you want to be behind that desk for the next month, you better start explaining what the joke is," he threatened half heartedly, which maddeningly, just seemed to make his people laugh all the more.
Holding up their hands in defeated unison, the two agents choked back their glee. Even if it was just for a minute. Diana recovered first, and gestured to the teetering tower of paper on her desk. Grinning, she avoided eye contact with Clinton to keep her laughter at bay.
"You remember Sarah McNamara, boss? The arts and theatre student from NYU… that was wandering around here, a couple of months ago? Do you, Neal?
Matching, blank expressions answered the question and Diana and Jones instantly dissolved into peals of laughter once more. Repressing the urge to thwack the pair of them over the head with the paper that seemed to be everywhere, Peter cleared his throat and raised a prompting brow. The distant strains of uproarious laughter from Hughes' office had him exchanging dark looks with his now highly perturbed informant. Jones took over from Diana, who had tried to continue, before sadly succumbing to yet another batch of uncontrollable hysteria.
"Well now," he grinned, "it turns out that her fly on the wall documentary of the relationship between a FBI handler and a criminal informant has made all kinds of waves," he threw his hands towards the mass of computers for Peter's benefit, "out there…on the old interweb."
Both said handler and said informant blinked. Before scrunching their eyes up in horror as dripping, seeping memories began to infiltrate their respective brains. Both mouths ran dry. "I thought she was writing a report? An academic report" Peter murmured hoarsely, accompanied by Neal's fervent, distressed nodding.
They had basically ignored that student. Not even realising she was in the room with them half of the time. She was pretty darn annoying, and so they had continued as they always did as if she were not there.
Their guts churned in tandem. What on earth had she heard….what had she seen?
Shaking her head, to the backdrop of another bout of laughter from Hughes' office, Dianna grinned devishly. "Nope boss…it's out there. I think there's….about fifteen hours and upwards worth of footage of you two doing…your thing. All broken down into just beautiful twenty or so minute YouTube clips."
Her wide grin widened ever further.
"With…the most beautiful background music too."
Neal and Peter gaped at each other.
"What thing?" they spluttered, in unison, causing the two agent's staring back at them to grin all the more widely.
Diana and Jones exchanged exasperated looks.
"That thing," they chorused sweetly, their eyes shining with the hilarity of it all. Being the slightly more sensitive of the two, Diana decided, eventually, to put the two bewildered men out of their very clear misery.
"Don't worry guys," she laughed, in a tone that let them know they should definitely worry, "the main focus hasn't been on the footage…it's been on the resultant fanfiction. It seems you two are quite the hit in the literary world. Who would have thought it, huh?" Beside her, she felt Jones buckle over once more and bit her lip mischievously to keep her own giggles at bay.
"Fanfiction?" Peter repeated blankly, looking at Neal in what he was sure would be a mirrored look of confusion.
It wasn't.
The kid looked positively horrified. That kind of mouth agape level horror…only came from sound, comprehended knowledge. Peter felt his heart sink.
"Please, someone tell me what this…this fanfiction is?" he pleaded limply, "and what in the hell it has to do with me and Neal?"
Jones grinned obligingly.
"Well Peter," he chuckled, "it's a website devoted to fiction based from a vast array of public material. Stories, tales etc. Written, by fans. In this case, your fans. About you. Well, about you and Neal here. A sort of…creative outlay, for all those doe eyed admirers that just can't get enough of your little modern day Starsky and Hutch routine."
The earth shifted on its axis as Peter struggled to hold on.
Fans?
Videos?
Stories?
He felt ill. Gravely ill.
Beside him, Neal felt distinctly clammy under his pristine shirt. He had a reputation to maintain.
Fans?
Videos?
Stories?
He swooned. All his years of careful cultivation, of the Caffrey confidence man, down the drain. Both mens eyes suddenly found the various stacks of paper on Diana's desk, and recalled the bundle in Hughes' hands. A collective wince went up as they eyed them wearily. Peter spoke first, pulling at his tie in distress.
"I take it there's nothing in there about you two?" he tried to bark, but it came out more like a puppies first yelp. Two grinning heads shook in the negative, as yet another chortle could be heard wafting down from Hughes' domain. "Oh my good lord," Peter murmured faintly, "oh my good lord."
He shook his head.
"I want it taken down," he suddenly instructed, with a wild flap of his arms. "The videos, the…the fan-doodahs. They all need to go," he drew in a ragged breath, "delete them Jones. Diana, get onto the university…have this…this Sarah girl pull all her footage." He ran a hand through his hair. "I would never have agreed to this if I'd known, never…"
Bucking over with glee, they both managed to shake their heads.
"Doesn't work like that boss," Diana croaked, tears in her eyes from her amusement, "once it's out there…it's out there." She tilted her head at an amazingly silent Neal, "I think this level of notoriety is a new even for you Caffrey?" He didn't answer her, for once, at a complete and utter loss for words.
Taking pity on the duo, she leafed around the desk, aided by a happily obliging Clinton.
"It's not all bad fellas," she consoled devilishly, "some of it is very flattering. In the individual sense as well. Want to hear a little excerpt?"
Whether they wanted to or not, transpired to have very little weight in the conversation. Plucking up a selected sheet into her hand, Diana cleared her throat dramatically, and stood up to read aloud. The heat in both men's faces' instantly went into the tropical realm.
"Peter Burke, one of the bureau's most devastatingly handsome, but equally intelligent federal agents', frowned. His beautiful, open face tautening in concentration. After everything he did for that maddening Neal Caffrey, the foolish boy wonder he had essentially saved from his own self, he still had to do things his way. He just didn't know" she continued dramatically, "how much more of the self absorbed, insubordinate behaviour of his young rescue he could take, and-"
An indignant gasp cut her off. Turing to Peter in consternation, Neal raised an antagonised brow. The older man looked…mollified. Sucking in air through his teeth, the younger man shook his head. "This is outrageous," he clipped, "we have to go the University ourselves, we have to-"
Peter waved a silencing hand.
"Ssshh Neal," he rebuked, before turning his attention back to Diana. "Why don't you carry on? I have to say…it's very realistic for supposed fiction." Snorting in laughter, she did indeed make to carry on, before being interrupted by an equally shaking Jones.
"Now now…I think it's only fair that we hear from both sides of the spectrum, don't you think?" he murmured cheerily. Before any of them could answer, he had clutched a sheet of his own and also stood, trying to stem his amusement. Clearing his throat, he looked up with a feigned seriousness and held the sheet out in front of him as if was reading a freaking proclamation.
"Neal was so very close to throwing in the towel. He had basically revolutionised the White Collar department, and still, still that damned Peter Burke couldn't crack a smile. He had to be one of the most irritable, nagging, humourless men he'd ever met in his entire life." Jones paused to grin wickedly. "He had basically pulled their closure rate up by the bootstraps, and all Peter could do was whine and nitpick like some ninety year-old , vegan widow. He was basically a god given blessing to the FBI, and still, even his beautifully soft features wrinkled as Burke the Jerk decided to unwrap yet another crime against humanity of a sandwich, right beside him. The gifted, talented, young artist-"
An outraged growl cut him off. Turning to Neal, Peter was more than a bit concerned to see the twinkle back in his eyes and the trademark grin on his face. "You're right," he conceded rapidly, "we need to go to the University and-"
Neal waved a silencing hand.
"Ssshh Peter," he grinned, "carry on, Jones. Whoever this person is, they've really captured your essence, Agent Burke."
Spluttering, Jones and Diana dove through the pile again. "Fret not, fret not," Clinton assured his audience rapidly, "I'm sure we can find something that compliments both of you. People seemed to think the two of you together are just like the cutest thing ever."
The disgruntled expression returned to both men's faces.
Working as if through a checklist, Jones handed potential candidates to Diana, who howled in the direction of Neal and Peter's concerned expressions.
"Ok," she giggled, "here's one….where the two of you are married, with a dog called Patchmo?"
Both stared in horror.
Choking with laughter, she moved on.
"How about…" she clasped a hand over her heart and pretended to squeal, "oh this adorable…Peter, you're Neal's dad, and he's just turned five and-"
"Diana!" both newly minted stars hissed. Peter however could have sworn he heard Neal mumble something along the lines of "at least they got our age gap right." Before he could even formulate a fittingly biting response, his agent's pallor paled. As too, did Jones', as he was reading over his shoulder.
"What is it?" Peter ground out anxiously, "oh god what is it?" This time, he did turn to glare at Neal. "I swear down Caffrey if you've run off to Paris with my wife and dog-"
He was interjected.
"Uhh boss…" Jones mumbled anxiously, "uhm…we haven't seen all the footage yet, but…erm, did you and Neal have a…less than favourable discussion about… Hughes when Sarah was in the room with you?"
Both Neal and Peter instantly looked at each other and the page in Diana's hands, and felt their stomachs drop. Before they could even utter a syllable, a voice bellowed out from the balcony, causing all four heads to swivel upwards.
Reece wasn't laughing anymore.
Using the traditional two finger point to its full effect, his glower seemed as hot as magma.
"Burke!…Caffrey!….I know you two are celebrities now, and that you're busy with your marriage plans, but could I borrow you two for just a moment?"
He held up a sheet in his hand as he spoke, glaring down at the guiltily shifting dynamic duo.
"Now."
…..
A/N: Just random silliness that popped into my head!
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